Made at Whiskey Design · 2022–2024
Bat Bar
Lost Canyon canned cocktails for the Bat Bar at Top of the Rock. The launch needed product photography, motion and editing for every platform, all made in 3D. In autumn 2022 the cans and a cave were built once. For the next eighteen months that one world kept supplying new work.
One world, eighteen months.
The cave was the investment. Once the cans and the set existed, each new request was a new camera, a new light or a new prop, not a new build. These dates come from the project files.
- Oct 2022Five labels arrive flat; the can is modelled
- Nov 2022The cave is found in six days; the first spin
- Dec 2022Line-ups, macros, the four-pack table, first reel tests
- May 2023The sizzle reel
- Jul 2023A red cave for Mary’s Bloody Bat
- Dec 2023Print masters at 6000 × 4500
- Jun 2024Clean flavour renders on black
3D product vis
One accurate can, built from the label print files, able to wear every flavour.
Five labels, flat.
The labels were designed at Whiskey Design and finished as print files in October 2022: Bassaroo, Cannon, Hoop-Dee-Doo, Mary’s Bloody Bat and the non-alcoholic Bat’s Bite. Each is one wrap with the bat, the flavour, the legal panel and the barcode, drawn for a 12 fl oz can.
Label art by Whiskey Design.
One can, every wrap.
The can was modelled once and each wrap fitted to it, so the bat sits square on the front and the copy curls away the way it does on a shelf. The same can went on to carry every image on this page. In June 2024 it was rendered clean on black, flavour by flavour.
Botanical gin, lime juice. Made with Builders Gin.
Blended whiskey, pineapple, lemon.
Vodka, grapefruit, lime.
Strawberry and peach lemonade. Non-alcoholic.
No clean front render of Mary’s Bloody Bat is on file; it appears in the cave shots below.
Product photography
A set built in 3D and lit like a shoot: rock, colour, condensation and props.
Finding the cave.
The drinks are Lost Canyon cocktails, so the set is a cave. It took ten test renders between 4 and 9 November 2022: moss rock first, then a red cavern, then a violet arch with the cans lit from behind. The arch became the launch line-up at the top of this page.
The set, reused.
With the cave built, December was about pointing cameras into it. The moss rock came back for the gin. A table on the violet stone took the whole kit: four-pack carrier, koozie, glass and fruit, each modelled for the shot.
Close enough to read.
The labels are dense with drawing: a cave explorer, a mine tower, bats and hand-lettered type. Macro frames under cold condensation let that drawing carry the image.
A red cave for Mary’s Bloody Bat.
The Bloody Mary was in the launch line-up. In July 2023 it got a shoot of its own: the cave turned red, with tomatoes, a shallow river of juice and a glass with celery. In December 2023 the key frames were rendered again at 6000 × 4500, 20 by 15 inches at 300 dpi.
Animation
The same cans and sets, moving, then cut into a launch film.
Shots built to move.
The first spin was rendered five days after the cave was settled. A camera roll from the bat’s face out to the can hanging in the cave followed two days later, then slow macro passes through the condensation in December.
The sizzle reel.
Two test cuts in December 2022 ran 13.6 and 15 seconds. The final, finished in May 2023, runs 23: label macros, the cave line-ups, a pour, the four-pack, and the end card, “Hang around and enjoy a Lost Canyon Cocktail.” It plays silent here.
Credits.
- Brand
- Lost Canyon Cocktail, sold at the Bat Bar at Top of the Rock, Big Cedar Lodge. A partnership between Lost Canyon and Restless Spirits, launched in summer 2022.
- Agency
- Whiskey Design.
- Mason Barry
- Can, carrier and koozie models, look development, the cave sets, lighting, animation and the edit.
- Label art
- Whiskey Design.
- Tools
- Cinema 4D; Redshift for the 2023 Bloody Mary scenes; Premiere Pro for the reel.