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.
Ron Cicero and Bo Clancey Launch Production House 34North
Executive producers Ron Cicero and Bo Clancey have teamed to launch 34North. The shop opens with a roster which includes accomplished directors Jan Wentz, Ben Nakamura Whitehouse and Mario Feil, as well as such up-and-coming filmmakers as Glenn Stewart and Chris Fowles.
Nakamura Whitehouse, Feil and Fowles come over from CoMPANY Films, the production company for which Cicero served as an EP for the past nearly five years.
Director Wentz had most recently been with production house Skunk while Stewart now gains his first U.S. representation.
EP Clancey was freelance producing prior to the formation of 34North. He and Cicero have known each other for some 25 years, recently reconnecting on a job directed by Fowles. Cicero said that he and Clancey “want to keep a highly focused roster where talent management can be one on one--where we all share in the directors’ success together.”
Clancey also brings an agency pedigree to the new venture. “I started at Campbell Ewald in accounts, no less,” said Clancey. “I saw firsthand how much work agencies put in before we even see a script. You have to respect that investment. These agency experiences really shaped my approach to production--it’s about empathy, listening between the lines, and ultimately making the process seamless.”
34North represents a meeting point--both literally and creatively. Named after the latitude of Malibu, Calif., where the idea for the company was born, it also embraces the power of storytelling. “34North118West was the first GPS-enabled narrative,” Cicero explained. “That blend of art and technology, to captivate an audience, mirrors what we do here--create compelling work, with talented people, harnessing state-of-the-art... Read More