PRO X by OLAY Anime Commercials | Satsuei Compositing

Step beneath the skin,where every layer needs its own light.

Late Studio took part in two Japanese-style anime commercials for PRO X by OLAY, handling the post-production compositing stage known in anime production as “satsuei” (photography). Both stories follow a researcher who travels beneath the skin: the first episode takes on the senescent cells behind wrinkles, the second the melanin cells that create dark spots. The team composited the characters and backgrounds finished by the animation studio into the final images, adding lighting, glow, depth of field and colour grading to every shot, and delivered two 30-second landscape anime commercials.

Starting with Two Skin Worries | Beneath the Skin

Both episodes begin with an everyday worry. In Episode 1, the heroine has just had a botox injection, yet the wrinkles come back; in Episode 2, she has just had laser treatment, yet new dark spots appear.

The camera then follows a researcher in a white coat into different layers of the skin: in Episode 1 she meets a crowd of zombie-like senescent cells in the collagen layer, and in Episode 2 she finds the melanin-making “squid” near the dermis. Every layer is a new scene, and each needs a new kind of light.

Satsuei in Anime | What Compositing Does

In Japanese anime production, “satsuei” is the stage where coloured characters, backgrounds and effects elements are layered together. The cels delivered by the animation studio have clean lines and flat colours; only at the satsuei stage does the image gain a sense of where the light comes from, how thick the air is, and where the focus falls.

In the Episode 1 shot where the researcher dives into the collagen layer, for example, the team added backlight and rim light to make her white coat pop from the background; in Episode 2’s “squid” shot, depth of field and soft glow blur the ink in the foreground, guiding the eye naturally to its eyes.

Two Episodes, Two Lights | Black Bottle and White Bottle

The two episodes correspond to two products: a black anti-wrinkle essence in Episode 1 and a white spot-fading essence in Episode 2. Before production, the team agreed the lighting direction for both episodes with the animation team: pink light as the key tone for Episode 1, and blue light for Episode 2.

This way, even though both episodes share the researcher and the skin world, viewers can still tell them apart by colour, and link each light to each product.

The Toughest Part | Light Must Follow the Animation’s Rhythm

Japanese anime is usually drawn on twos or threes, meaning a new drawing only every two or three frames. If compositing effects move smoothly at 24 frames per second, they fall out of sync with the characters’ movement, and the image instantly loses its anime feel.

So the team made glows, flashes and particles change in step with the animation’s rhythm, and in every round of revisions confirmed lighting, colour and details shot by shot with the director. Previews were exchanged as H.264 files, and the final delivery was output as ProRes 422 MOV files.

Back to the Beginning | After the Worries Are Solved

Both episodes end with the researcher: she raises the product as the little white bottle squad appears beside her. The adventure beneath the skin is over, and the image moves from the soft glow of the skin world back to the brand logo.

These two commercials introduce skincare products in the language of Japanese anime, and the satsuei stage handled by the team gives every layer of skin its own light.

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