Topping SHOOT’s quarterly VFX/Animation Chart is a visually ambitious Under Armour commercial, “Rule Yourself—Anthem,” directed and shot by Oscar-winning (for Christopher Nolan’s Inception) cinematographer Wally Pfister of production house RESET for Droga5, New York.
In some respects the spot is reminiscent of the old joke which has someone seeking directions in Manhattan asking a stranger, “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” The response is simply, “Practice, practice.”
Indeed practice makes perfect as this centerpiece commercial of the Under Armour campaign features American Ballet Theatre principal dancer Misty Copeland, golf champion Jordan Spieth and basketball superstar Stephen Curry who are all multiplied before our eyes, becoming an army of synchronized athletes, completing training rep after rep, relentlessly practicing the skills that set them apart.
Curry is the perfect poster athlete for this campaign. Slight of build and far from the physically strongest player on the court, Curry is a product of regimen and prepartion—the first to arrive at practice and the last to leave, constantly working on his shooting, passing, defense, agility and endurance. This dedication translated into his this past season being named NBA MVP with his team, the Golden State Warriors, winning the NBA world championship. It’s the hard work no one sees that leads to his high-profile success on the court. The same holds true for the self-discipline of Copeland and Spieth—and it also applies to the behind-the-scenes prep and visual effects artistry that went into the on-air spot for all to see.
Early involvement
The prime creative challenge posed by “Rule Yourself,” observed Sean Costelloe, sr. executive producer, head of production at The Mill NY, was “to create armies of athletes for Misty Copeland, Stephen Curry and Jordan Spieth. It was important that it translated as if they were real performances versus CG as much as possible.”
The Mill ensemble of artists was “involved very early on in the project,” continued Costelloe. “The director Wally Pfister and the creative team at Droga5 wanted to create an epic film that was cinematic and not an exercise in CGI. They wanted it to feel powerful, visceral and dramatic. Together we developed a camera array system to capture simultaneous actions and performances from the same take, which was then tiled in post. To make the CG crowds as convincing as possible, we took CG scans on set of the athletes and also motion captured performance to drive the animation of our characters.”
Among the software in the toolbox deployed by The Mill on “Rule Yourself—Anthem” were Flame, Flare, Nuke, Massive, Maya and Houdini.
The Mill NY contingent on the job included: Costelloe; Nirad Bugs Russell, sr. producer; Rachel Greco, Kristy Chooi, production coordinators; Gavin Wellsman, VFX supervisor, joint head of 2D, 2D lead artist; Nathan Kane, VFX supervisor/2D lead artist; Wyatt Savarese, VFX supervisor/CG lead; Hitesh Patel, VFX supervisor/shoot supervisor; Ilia Mokhtareizadeh, Emily Bloom, Michael Smith, sr. compositors; Alex Dreiblatt, Heather Kennedy, Rob Meade, Chris Glue, Sung Eun Moon, Yoon-sun Ba, compositors; Corey Langenlotti, Eric Lane, Katie Schiffer, Edward Hick, Cole Clark, Adam Willis, Can Y. Sanaian, German Casado, Melanie Climent, Ivan Joy, Justin Diamond, Ehsan Parizi, Laurent Glaume, Ren Hsien-Hsu, CG artists; and Fergus McCall, colorist.
The Droga5 creative team included: David Droga, creative chairman; Ted Royer, chief creative officer; Alexander Nowak, Felix Richter, creative directors; Sergio Alonso, copywriter; Sebastian Piacentini, art director; Max Friedman, Vignesh Seshadri, jr. art director; Kathryn Kvas, jr. copywriter; Sally-Ann Dale, chief creation officer; Ben Davies, head of broadcast production; Bill Berg, broadcast producer; Samuel Marx, associate broadcast producer; Chet Gulland, head of strategy; Harry Roman, group strategy director; Candice Chen, sr. brand strategist; Isaiah Brown, jr. strategist; Colleen Leddy, head of communications strategy; and Hilary Heath, communications strategist.
Andy McGraw of Stitch edited the Under Armour spot.
Pfister’s support team at RESET included managing director Dave Morrison, executive producer Jeff McDougall and producer James Graves.
