Fox Sports Design

FOX Sports teamed up with design, animation and visual effects studio BL:ND to place the biggest stars in
Major League Baseball inside a pinball machine for a new spot promoting the All-Star Game. The studio worked
hand-in-hand with the network’s creative team in developing the spot’s novel concept in which Mike Piazza,
Roger Clemens, Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriquez, Ichiro and other All-Stars play a surreal game of baseball set
inside a giant pinball machine.

“The All-Star Game promo is our biggest spot of the year and we put maximum energy and resources into it,” said
Fox Sports Vice President/Creative Director Robert Gottlieb.

Gottlieb asked BL:ND to develop a concept for a spot that would show the players having fun playing the game.
BL:ND creative director Chris Do responded with the pinball idea. After conducting extensive research, Gottlieb
concluded that placing live talent inside a pinball machine had not been done before and he gave the project a thumbs
up. “The moment Chris pitched the idea, we knew we were going to do it,” Gottlieb recalled. “The big question was
how were we going to execute it?”

After considering the possibility of using miniatures and other practical means, BL:ND and the team at Fox Sports
determined that the best solution was to create the pinball machine as a wholly CG environment and to composite
the players into it.

Prior to the live action shoots with the ball players, BL:ND produced a pre-viz animatic indicating camera locations
and movement, and light sources for each of the more than 60 visual effects shots in the spot. “The lighting inside
the game environment was complex and reactive. Getting it right was key to successfully integrating the players,”
explained Do.“We didn’t want them to appear to be pasted in.”

For its part, Gottlieb’s crew from Fox, who were producing the live action, shot test videos with stand-ins for the players.
“We were going to have 15 to 30 minutes with each player, at most,” Gottlieb said. “So it was essential that we were
prepared and knew exactly what we needed to achieve when they arrived.”

Shoots with the ball players occurred in Arizona and Florida over a combined period of ten days. The shoots were
directed by Gottlieb and fellow Fox Sports creative director Rob Hoover. Do, along with art director Rick Spitznas,
attended the Arizona shoot to offer technical advice.

With 60 CG shots to deliver, the bulk of BL:ND’s work was focused on tracking the live action elements to the 3D
environment, and on detailing the pinball machine. The results, according to Gottlieb, are wholly satisfying.
“It was a very ambitious concept and BL:ND succeeded in achieving it to a level I never thought possible,” he said.

Credits

Fox Sports EVP Marketing – Eric Markgraf
Fox Sports VP/Creative Director On-Air Promo – Robert Gottlieb
Fox Sports VP On-Air Promo – Chris Hannan
Director- Robert Gottlieb
Director – Rob Hoover
DP – Daniel Pearl
DP – Larry Dolkart
Production Company – Marsha Hunt Productions
Producers – Marsha Hunt & Lissa Weiss
Fox Sports Talent Coordinator – Kari Pickler
Fox Sports Exec. Producer – Bill Battin
Editor – Phillip Shtoll
Sound Design – Mic Brooling
Flame Compositing – Cari Chadwick
Mac design & compositing – Guillermo Lecona

Credits for BL:ND

Creative Director/Designer – Chris Do
Executive Producer – Santino Sladavic
Art Director/Writer – Rick Spitznas
Technical Director/Lead Artist/Modeler/Animator – Lawrence Wyatt
Animators – Yan Ng, Asier Hernaez, Clint Chang, Steve Pacheco, Sakona Kong, Hansoo Im, Juan Granja, Sanford Kennedy, Lin Wilde and Todd Perry
BouJou aritists – Ownen Hammer and Shant Jordan