Advocacy & Safety - Glowing Bike Ad... How'd they do that?

My bet is a glow in the dark paint combined with blacklight to enhance the effect.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pX5YsU8sir4

Black (UV) light I suspect.

Cg

I'm going with computer generated too.

Too bad it was an ad for a phone (that is losing market share) rather than a bike that glows at night (far far cooler).

I spotted some spray cans with "94" on them as the cyclist was leaving his flat, but google came up empty for me.

I'm more concerned about texting while cycling being so cool, but maybe I'm being a nanny about that.

I spotted some spray cans with "94" on them as the cyclist was leaving his flat, but google came up empty for me.

I'm more concerned about texting while cycling being so cool, but maybe I'm being a nanny about that.

The 94 refers to http://www.mtncolors.com/, really nothing to do with anything.

Something similar can be made up with a lighting kit, similar to this:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=dbxSjyDnBLY#!

This is pretty promising too:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBgX2K_IVA8&feature=related

Cg


I'm going with computer generated too.

"Screen images simulated" in fine print in the first frames...

"Screen images simulated" in fine print in the first frames...

Doesn't that refer to the phone's screen images within the commercial?

Yes, 'screen images simulated' is a necessary disclaimer because they are of the actual product being sold. Actually photographing the phone's screen that close will show aliasing and lack of sharpness and it generally will look much worse than your eyes would see it in use.

Glowing bikes are probably painted with a proprietary UV reflective paint then illuminated with special narrow band UV lights like those from Wildfire, Inc in LA. UV light and reflectance is pretty low level and can be washed out by ambient light. There can be a surprising amount of light in urban night exteriors, so careful choice of locations and control of practical sources like streetlights would have helped keep things dark so the UV effect would 'pop.'

Then there is always more that can be done to 'clean up' things in the post production process: enhancing the colors in the CC session, even CG rotoscoping if necessary, not such a huge task in a 30 sec spot.

The perfect Burning Man bike!!

The Revo lights link posted above looks interesting.

there is some retroreflective powder coat. Halo (http://www.halocoatings.com/)

I had my son search for any information about these bikes, came up empty

Ah-ha! Good spot, Unterhausen.

Though there is now at least one bike design (by a small company called ID+) using the Halo coatings retro-reflective paint, there are no photos I could find demonstrating those properties.

However here is a page from Velocity's website, showing the same coating as applied to rims.

http://velocityusa.blogspot.com/2010/06/hey-lo-halo.html

This looks very much like Scotchlite, which is also used in motion picture work. There is a neat little system for doing greenscreen work: the screen is made of the Scotchlite material and the camera has a ringlight of tiny green LEDs. The LEDs put out barely any light themselves but the Scotchlite is so efficient when on-axis that most of that light comes back from the screen and illuminates it just fine.

I would guess the Halo Coatings people have figured out something that works similarly to Scotchbrite but can be applied in suspension...and doesn't infringe the 3M patent. And either they have also found a way to make the material reflect with a color tint added or...there is something else going on, because there's no way the different colored bikes could each be lit by different lights.

Pretty cool in any case!

glow in the dark paint or powdercoat

here's an example: http://www.doobybrain.com/2009/05/15/glow-in-the-dark-bicycle-from-cambridge-bicycle/

http://www.doobybrain.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/cambridge-glow-bike-light.jpg

http://www.doobybrain.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/cambridge-glow-bike.jpg

The first couple seconds of the commercial do show the paint spray cans with the implication that the rider had just finish the paint job in time to catch and join the ride.

If it was glow in the dark paint, they must have put the bikes in front of some giant mega watt sun lamps before each section of the filming.

I would think that black lighting all the bikes while riding would be a major headache to do without shadows.

the perfect burning man bike!!

n + 1

This looks very much like Scotchlite, which is also used in motion picture work. There is a neat little system for doing greenscreen work: the screen is made of the Scotchlite material and the camera has a ringlight of tiny green LEDs. The LEDs put out barely any light themselves but the Scotchlite is so efficient when on-axis that most of that light comes back from the screen and illuminates it just fine.

Interesting theory, but I'm certain that it's not Scotchlite... This is what Scotchlite looks like:

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3173/2697188369_0b3069323e.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/ufobike/2697188369/)

It doesn't have that soft pastel look that we see in the ad. Also, take it from me, it's hard to cover every inch of a bike.

That said, I'd agree... It is still pretty cool.

No, not Scotchlite, but a paint that uses similar particles...could be it. I agree about the pastel glowy quality of the illumination on the bikes but something that was retro-reflective but diffused the output and colored it could be the answer. Diffusion either at the lens (not preferable in that kind of environment) or in post production is another possibility.

Or it could be a super-power glow in the dark (phosphorescent) paint. A company called 'Glow Inc.' has glow in the dark paints that they claim are the brightest on the market, and stay energized for up to 24 hours. However their photo gallery shows the objects in totally dark environments, so while they look bright, you get no idea how relatively bright they are compared to ambient lighting. In the commercial the bikes are going down lit streets and appear easily as bright as lit shop windows. It appears some of the photos in the Glow Inc gallery are enhanced with UV (blacklight)...which could be what's going on in the commercial, too. The bikes in the spot do seem to have a wider range of colors than Glow, Inc., offers. That is not to say that there isn't another manufacturer of something similar but better.

The Cambridge Bike Co. bike shown above was a custom powder coat, presumably using something like the Glow Inc colors...however the photo shows the bike in a dark environment, so again, no way to tell if it's actually that bright.

Given this assignment I would fall back on the cinematographer's mantra: 'Test, test, test!'

I thought of your bike when I saw that K'Tesh, and wondered the same thing you did.

Fluorescent paint by Montana Colors; UV light. Black clothing and wet roads reduce visibility of both UV illumination and visible light illumination of other objects, making the color stand out more.

http://www.mtncolors.com/products/56-94

My guess is that they mounted the illuminator bore-sighted with the camera, at minimal displacement, to eliminate shadows.

Fluorescent paint by Montana Colors; UV light. Black clothing and wet roads reduce visibility of both UV illumination and visible light illumination of other objects, making the color stand out more.

http://www.mtncolors.com/products/56-94

My guess is that they mounted the illuminator bore-sighted with the camera, at minimal displacement, to eliminate shadows.One of the those shots of the entire group was not minimal distance. But your idea does work for closeups.

One of the those shots of the entire group was not minimal distance. But your idea does work for closeups.

By minimal displacement, I mean the illuminator is mounted very close to the camera aperture - just a couple of inches. By bore-sighted, I mean the illuminator is aimed in line with the camera. As a result, the camera will not see shadows of ultraviolet light from the illuminator because those shadows are behind the object illuminated, from the perspective of the camera.

The farther the subject is from the camera/illuminator combo, the less visible shadows from the illuminator will be, since the convergence angle is so shallow. If the camera were off to the side, creating a significant convergence angle, then you'd be able to see a dark shadow on the bike frame where the cyclist's pants blocks the UV light from reaching the frame. Instead, in the video, the bike parts only go dark when they are directly occluded by another object between them and the camera. This means that the object either (a) truly glows from internal energy, (b) is illuminated from all sides, or (c) is illuminated from the direction of the camera, which is the simple way to do it.

I have designed and built custom long range camera systems using bore-sighted infrared illuminators, so I understand the illumination power and shadow issues, but I have not worked directly with ultraviolet illuminators. However, I am confident that enough ultraviolet light could be directed from the camera location to the cyclists at a distance and reflected back to provide the intensity of flourescence shown in the video. Given how dark the ambient visible illumination is, and how sensitive new video cameras are, it really wouldn't require that much power in the illuminator to get those high-contrast results, where the bikes really stand out.

here is an instructable on one way to do it. http://www.instructables.com/id/Night-Bike/


I am thinking that the white handlbars on my sons fixie might be a candidate for a small scale application of of this

I'll have to think about this, Caswell sells the strontium aluminate powder as an additive for powder coating

Still might prefer retroreflective

http://www.instructables.com/id/Night-Bike/

I put a query out to some professional colleagues and learned about something I had not known about before: Electroluminescent Lighting or EL, which is available in very thin (nearly like paper) panels, or rolls of tape, or even wires. It must be powered which means batteries, but on a bike there would be many ways to hide them. There is a wide range of colors available and it is both very bright and dimmable.

I am now about 99% sure it's EL on the bikes in that spot.

Pros: bright enough to compete with ambient lighting like storefronts, signs, etc.; also bright enough to 'glow'; wide range of colors, in fact colors shown look like those in the commercial; dimmable for matching light levels between bikes.

Cons: probably a complete pain to cover an entire bike esp in transitions, however range of materials in same color would help (tape for frame tubes, wires for spokes, etc). Only one bike shown in closeup, so if necessary several versions of that bike could be done to look good from a certain angle; secondary bikes probably wouldn't have to be so perfect in execution. Also: this is what we have the Art Department for!

Here's an example of someone who used the EL wire on his bike. Note that it is not that dark in this scene: there are streetlights and ambient light in the sky, yet the bike reads very bright. Extrapolate that to also using 1" tape to wrap around the frame and I think that's it:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddoXubGpsL4&feature=related

I just orderd some of the strontium paint. My son's Fixie has white rims. It will be interesting to see how this works and more interesting to see the look on his face if it does as I am not telling him upfront