Cancer Research

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Artem was approached by Rogue Films to design and make four ‘lumps in the road’ for a commercial for Cancer Research UK, the largest of which was approximately 5 metres by 4 metres in size. Between the first phone call and the day of the shoot, we had a tight turnaround of three weeks to complete the project.

Project Details

The road lumps had to match the paving bricks of the street used for the shoot, and be distorted in such a way that made it appear as if a 'tumour' was growing in the road. In the commercial, the general public ignore these lumps, in the same way that some people might ignore harmful, cancerous lumps on their bodies.

The first step was to design the road lumps using our 3D virtual sculpting software, based on photos we had taken of the street on location. Our designs were then directly cut out in raw polystyrene foam using our KUKA robot arm.

The machined pieces of polystyrene were finished by hand by our keen team of artists; they were sealed with a waterproof coating of paint after being sanded down with sandpaper and wire brushes. To match the street on location, we had to create a brick-like texture, which we achieved by using various fillers; we also had to ensure that the right colouring was used.

When it came to placing the lumps onto the street, we added slight adjustments to get the colouring right and to fit the lumps securely to the pavement – lining up brick details and adding double yellow lines, for example.

The lumps had to be light enough to carry on and off set, but durable enough for a van to go over them; one of the lumps was reinforced in fibreglass to allow for a road sweeper to go over it! The lumps could be moved quite quickly from an adjacent yard where tents were set out to protect the lumps from the rain.