Set to break audience and revenue records, the HBO Sports/Showtime Sports pay-per-view boxing match pitting Floyd Mayweather against Manny Pacquiao on May 2 is getting even more of a buzz-generating boost from a broadcast promo campaign out of agency 2C Creative.
With both fighters’ time focused heavily on training, 2C had to mobilize quickly, working within a very limited window to devise a shooting plan that would give this major event the cinematic grandeur and scale it deserves. Brian Eloe led the charge as the project’s director/creative director, while Luis Martinez headed the design and VFX supervision.
“Metaphorically, this spot is about the different paths these two titans have been on throughout their careers, all leading to this inevitable collision–a crossroads and showdown taking on the feel of a classic Sergio Leone gunfighter standoff,” explained Eloe. “However, we weren’t literally taking our fighters out into the desert, so we needed to transport them from the green screen into an epic, yet believable cinemascape and convey the smoldering tension of a showdown long overdue.”
To accomplish this, 2C utilized the motion capture robot MILO to create camera moves enabling them to shoot each boxer separately over green, followed by the background plates in the desert, with all elements lining up precisely in post. The technology also enabled more complex camera movements, which created a very believable parallax when the separate plates were married together. Orbiting the camera around the boxers created a sense of grandeur and heightened the believability of them actually being there, as the sweeping panorama shifted behind them. The results are shots that convey the suspense and sheer scale of Mayweather and Pacquiao coming face to face at this stylized crossroads.
