This visual tour de force meshing live action and 3D is vaguely reminiscent of the classic Alfred Hitchcock scene in which we look from the ground up through a glass coffee table, gaining insights from that down below perspective into the plot-advancing action unfolding above us.
Well consider this an exponentially amplified, on-steroids version of that POV, except instead of a coffee table, we’re looking up through the glass at a NASCAR speedway stadium and track, seeing the high-energy action from a down-under perspective that’s exhilarating.
From this POV, we see the cars racing, a pit crew doing its thing replete with lugnuts falling down towards us, jet planes zipping overhead, a car crash into a sidewall and other action,
The message: With the February airing of the Daytona 500, we can see NASCAR like we’ve never seen it before–namely in HD on FOX.
FOX Sports Marketing was the client with FOX Sports Design, Los Angeles, serving as the agency with a creative team that included exec VP marketing Eric Markgraaf, senior VP/creative director Robert Gottlieb, creative director and live-action director Mark Simmons, VP on air promotions Bill Battin, editor Kirk Smith, Flame artist Kevin Prendiville, sound designers Mic Brooling and Jim Mitchell. Live-action DP was Tom McGrath.
The VFX house was La Huella in Madrid, with 3D/2D supervision by Jerome Debeve and Juan Antonio Ruiz, a coterie of 3D artists consisting of Antonio Lado, David Gonzalez, Gerardo Arpide, Miquel Angel Corominas, Vanesa Iglesias, Martin Contel and Cesar Eiji, 2D/post artists Regis Barbey, Thiago Dantas and Ricardo Gomez, with a story/textures team that includes Santiago Verdugo, David Escribano and Paco Rodriguez.
The action is set to the tune “World Domination” by Ash.
The live-action scenes were filmed by Simmons in L.A. while La Huella’s 3D team was off and running back in Madrid.
“This was one of the more difficult shoots we’ve ever undertaken,” said Simmons; “safely suspending actors 14 feet off the ground on a glass floor was a huge logistical problem.”
La Huella’s team, led by Debève, brought this world to life with an array of beautiful flourishes and wonderfully detailed nuances in every frame.
Among the key technical hurdles La Huella faced and cleared was applying each cars “skin” to the car models. “La Huella nailed getting the skins outfitted properly on the CG cars right out of the gate,” said Bill Battin; Fox Sports Marketing VP.
SUPERLATIVE Signs Director Claudia Abend For Spots and Branded Content
Latin American director/editor and documentary filmmaker Claudia Abend has joined SUPERLATIVE for her first U.S. representation spanning commercials and branded content.
Abend's empathetic docu-style POV has garnered several international awards for the documentary films Hit (2008) and The Flower of Life (2018). Her spotmaking credits include such brands as Procter & Gamble, Nestle and Blue Cross/Blue Shield. SUPERLATIVE has already worked with Abend, together producing a new ad campaign for digital agency Tinuiti and The Honest Company, a consumer goods corporation featuring eco-minded products.
“We found Claudia through her poignant documentaries on the festival circuit,” said SUPERLATIVE creative manager Stefan Dezil. “We are excited about her textured narratives, emotional storytelling, and her powerhouse long-form storytelling abilities, currently on her third feature film. As SUPERLATIVE continues to build our brand after premiering our latest films at Sundance and SXSW, Claudia is the kind of multidimensional artist we are excited to partner with on branded content and beyond. Fluent in English and Spanish, her reel shows real prowess with infants, food and skin products, families both young and old. Great visual storytelling and inspirational doc work.”
Abend began her career in her native Uruguay, studying film and editing in college. “My dad would show me films like Citizen Kane,” she said. “I love cinema and became an editor. It was here that I learned all about communicating human emotion.”
From the get-go, Abend hit it big as a documentary director, teaming with Adrianna Loeff on Hit, a movie chronicling pop artists of Uruguayan music. Abend took home a Best Editing... Read More