This was a somewhat unusual project for us, in that where we were asked to create a spot for Sylvania HD TV’s to run during Chicago Blackhawk games. Our lead designer, Guillermo Lecuona, was a big fan of Important Looking Pirates and they’d done a really impressive animation test for us a few moths earlier for a World Series pitch. “Our concern was that we didn’t have enough time to produce this 3D particle concept we liked.” said Robert Gottlieb, Fox Sports Marketing SVP/Creative Director, “but the World Series animation tests ILP did for us convinced us they could pull this off in an incredibly short time frame”.

We were thrilled that ILP jumped on board. Niklas and the crew were fantastic to work with.“The quality of their animation, and the realism of their renders, was wonderful” said Lecuona, “they delivered at a really high level”. Mic Brooling created a beautifully elegant piano piece and the end result is a spot that really captures your attention…and hopefully sells a few Sylvania TV’s as well.

Credits

Title: “All The Details”
Client: FSN
Product: Sylvania HD TV

Agency: Fox Sports Design
EVP Marketing: Eric Markgraf
SVP/Creative Director: Robert Gottlieb
Design Director: Guillermo Lecuona
Original Music: Mic Brooling
Director Production: Becky Schaeffer
Director on-Air Promo: Keith Hritz

Production Company: Important Looking Pirates
VFX Producer: Frida Färlin
VFX Supervisor: Niklas Jacobson
VFX team: Niklas Nyqvist, Niklas Ström, Daniel Rådén.

Fox Sports Design and Method Labs team-up for the Bowl Championship Series on Fox.

We’ve always been huge fans of Method (naturally), and it was a thrill and an honor to have them come aboard and work with us on this cinematic epic of a spot. Creative Director Josh Nichols came up with a perfect visual metaphor for the season long chase for the college championship, a Maze. After developing the style frames in-house (thanks, Phillip Shtoll), Josh and EP Bill Battin brought the boards to Method and they jumped on board.

A practical maze set was built on a blue screen stage where 8 football players had nearly 40 wardrobe changes (to cover all the possible teams). After an intense one day shoot, we handed a locked cut to Method for them to work their magic. Within a really tight schedule, Method modeled, animated and composited the spot, while Fox Sports’ in-house composer Mic Brooling created a thrilling original score.

Method worked tirelessly to pull everything together and bring this to life, and Kevin Prendiville pulled off quite a bit of 2D magic in our Flame to help handle some serious last minute curveballs that had everyone scrambling. Stay tuned for more BCS Maze action as the college football season unfolds. The end is just the beginning…

Credits

VFX

:Method

Visual Effects Executive Producer – Lisa Houck

Visual Effects Producer – Allyson Nevil

Visual Effects Shoot Supervision – Gil Baron, Rob Moggach

Lead Creative - Chris Smallfield

Lead 2D VFX Artist – Billy Higgens, Noah Caddis
CG Technical Supervisor – Hai Nguyen
3D VFX Artist – Matt Longwell, Phillip Hartman, Scott Metzger

Live Action

Director – Joshua Nichols

DP – Ueli Steiger
Producer – Marc Blitstein

Production Design & Art Direction – Paul Martin

Fox Sports

EVP Marketing – Eric Markgraf
SVP/Creative Director – Robert Gottlieb
Creative Director – Joshua Nichols

Executive Producer – Bill Battin
Coordinating Producer – Becky Schaefer
Editor – Junior McRae

Design – Phillip Shtoll

Flame Compositing (in-house) – Kevin Prendiville
Music and Sound Design – Mic Brooling