If you put one of the top basketball players in the world in a one-on-one game against a Velociraptor, who do you think would win? Foote, Cone & Belding (FCB), Chicago, put that theory to the test in "Raptor vs. Raptor," a :30 for Gatorade Fierce, directed by Steve Beck of Industrial Light+Magic Commercial Productions (ILMCP), Los Angeles and San Rafael, Calif.
The spot, which debuted on Feb. 13 during the NBA All-Star 2000 game, opens to an empty gymnasium, where Toronto Raptors forward Vince Carter sits on a bench drinking Gatorade Fierce. A tremendous roar is heard, and an empty Gatorade water cooler comes hurling towards Carter with a bite taken out of it. Enter Raptor, the fierce dinosaur, ready for a game. The two face off, lunging into a primeval battle of man-versus-beast on the court. Carter and the Raptor are well matched, until the dinosaur pulls off a nasty dunk, shattering the backboard glass and knocking Carter to the ground. Breathing heavily, and dripping purple beads of sweat, Carter looks stunned. Two more Raptors enter the gym and Carter looks at the camera and says, "I think I’m going to need some more Fierce."
"Raptor vs. Raptor" was born out of the original Gatorade "It’s In You" campaign that featured black-and-white shots of athletes sweating the color of whatever Gatorade drink they were consuming. But in order to promote Gatorade Fierce, the brand’s high-octane version of the original, the creatives wanted to up the ante to let the consumer know that this product was bolder. "The advertising needed to reflect the name, so the executions had to be fierce," explained FCB creative director/copywriter Colin Costello.
Fortunately for Costello and his partner, FCB creative director/art director Geoff Edwards, Gatorade had recently signed Carter as a spokesperson for the energy drink just as his career was hitting an all-time high. Carter was the number one pick for the NBA All-Star 2000 team, and won NBA.com’s All-Star 2000 Slam Dunk contest the same weekend Gatorade began airing the commercial. "Right now Vince Carter is unquestionably one of the best basketball players in the league, so we said, ‘We have Vince Carter, Vince Carter plays for the Raptors’—and bing! The light goes off. It was pretty easy from there," Edwards said.
The creative team went straight to ILMCP, the commercial division of Industrial Light+ Magic (ILM), San Rafael, the company responsible for bringing dinosaurs to life in both Jurassic Park and The Lost World: Jurassic Park 2. Currently, ILM is in the process of working on Jurassic Park 3.
The live-action portion of the spot was shot first by director Beck. To make it appear that Carter was really playing an aggressive game against the Raptor, Beck recruited a basketball player named Samuel Tyson from the local gymnasium to play one-on-one with Carter. "We were just looking for someone who was above Vince’s height and who could challenge him," said Edwards, adding that Tyson took Carter to the hole a couple of times. "Vince kind of raised his level of competitiveness based on this guy," said Costello.
That footage was rough-cut into a seamless game of one-on-one between Carter and Tyson, then given to a team of five CG animators at ILMCP. The group was headed by freelance animation director Randy Dutra, who was hired by ILMCP to work on the spot. Previously, Dutra had been a senior animator on Jurassic Park and animation supervisor for The Lost World. The animators worked to combine the beast’s primal aggression with Tyson’s movements and then aligned it to Carter’s actions. "[Because of his feature work] Randy is inherently aware of the CG models and what the animals are capable of in terms of how they move," said Beck.
The Raptor was animated on top of the plates of Carter’s opponent. After viewing the action, the team reconstructed the background plates by pasting and gluing in different pieces of the set to cover up Tyson’s form. "There are a few shots where Samuel’s hands are on Vince, but we painted them purple so you can’t see them," explained Beck. ILMCP viewpainter Richard Moore was responsible for adding the colorful beads of sweat, and for painting the textures for the Raptor.
"It was a really crazy kind of production, where you would go into one room and there would be a guy working on a bead of sweat, and you’d go to another room and there’s a guy working on a hand," Edwards said.
The process took two-and-a-half months from conception to completion. Since the spot has been airing, FCB said that one common reaction it’s received is that the Raptor beat Carter. "What we say is the Raptor didn’t win; it’s implied that it [the game] is going to continue," said Edwards who would not disclose whether another spot was in the hopper.
