In the past, we focused on creating CG epics to portray the power, speed, and thrills of NASCAR. However, this
season we consciously made a sea change in direction and decided to try to find a much more emotional and humanistic
connection to the sport. “Gas Station” is a continuation of that approach. The idea for using the classic rural gas station
came from our head of Marketing, Eric Markgraf, and came alive under the watchful eyes of lead creatives Blake Danforth
and Jason Scott.

““We looked at hundreds of Gas Stations across the US for the perfect spot, believe or not it’s not easy these days to find
that perfectly cool retro station with timeless flavor.” said Danforth. However, with the help of Production Designer Robert
DeVico and DP Daniel Pearl, “we were able to create this really warm, mystical space” said Scott.

Warm, inviting, slightly mysterious, and evocative of a time and place that may no longer exist (and may never have in the
first place), this Daytona 500 commercial is unabashedly emotional, and far different than any other NASCAR spot we’ve
produced in the past. And that alone makes it something we’re excited about.

CREDITS

Agency – Fox Sports Design
Client – Fox Sports Marketing

Agency: Fox Sports Design

EVP Marketing – Eric Markgraf
SVP/Creative Director – Robert Gottlieb
VP On-Air Promotions – Bill Battin
Creative Director – Blake Danforth
Sr. Writer/Producer – Jason Scott
Edit – Kirk Smith
Music & Sound Design – Mic Brooling
Flame – Kevin Prendiville
Designer – Guillermo Lecuona

Live Action Shoot

Director – Blake Danforth & Jason Scott
DP – Daniel Pearl
Producer – Marsha Hunt & Lissa Weiss

We recently were asked to create some new NASCAR spots that would connect emotionally with core, long-term
NASCAR fans. The brief called for us to reaffirm the cultural connections of God, Country, and Family that many Nascar
fans see as the heart of their sport. To that end, we were asked to build around the tagline… “I believe in Family, I believe
in Country, I believe in Nascar” and to incorporate audio from pre-race prayers.

Since most of our Nascar work in the past tended to focus on power, thrills, and speed, it was a welcome change to go
for a more flesh and blood approach. We produced three different takes on the “I Believe” theme. For “Diner” we relied
on a very simple slice of life vignette to evoke a sense of shared culture and community. For “Projection”, we showed how
true Nascar fans self-identify the sport as actually being a part of their very homes. And for “Track”, we shot at a race to
tap into the self-contained community that springs up at Nascar tracks every week during the season.

CREDITS

Agency – Fox Sports Design
Client – Fox Sports Marketing

Fox Sports Design

EVP Marketing – Eric Markgraf
SVP/ Creative Director – Robert Gottlieb
VP On-Air Promotions – Bill Battin
Sr. Writer/Producer – Jason Scott
Edit – Tom Hok
Music & Sound Design – Mic Brooling
Flame – Kevin Prendiville & Thomas Downs

Live Action Shoot

Director – Robert Gottlieb
DP – Daniel Pearl
Producer – Marsha Hunt & Lissa Weiss
Production Design – Wendy Samuels

We recently were asked to create some new NASCAR spots that would connect emotionally with core, long-term
NASCAR fans. The brief called for us to reaffirm the cultural connections of God, Country, and Family that many Nascar
fans see as the heart of their sport. To that end, we were asked to build around the tagline… “I believe in Family, I believe
in Country, I believe in Nascar” and to incorporate audio from pre-race prayers.

Since most of our Nascar work in the past tended to focus on power, thrills, and speed, it was a welcome change to go
for a more flesh and blood approach. We produced three different takes on the “I Believe” theme. For “Diner” we relied
on a very simple slice of life vignette to evoke a sense of shared culture and community. For “Projection”, we showed how
true Nascar fans self-identify the sport as actually being a part of their very homes. And for “Track”, we shot at a race to
tap into the self-contained community that springs up at Nascar tracks every week during the season.

CREDITS

Agency – Fox Sports Design
Client – Fox Sports Marketing

Fox Sports Design

EVP Marketing – Eric Markgraf
SVP/ Creative Director – Robert Gottlieb
VP On-Air Promotions – Bill Battin
Sr. Writer/Producer – Jason Scott
Edit – Kirk Smith
Music & Sound Design – Mic Brooling
Flame – Kevin Prendiville

Live Action Shoot

Director – Robert Gottlieb
DP – Daniel Pearl
Producer – Marsha Hunt & Lissa Weiss
Production Design – Wendy Samuels

We recently were asked to create some new NASCAR spots that would connect emotionally with core, long-term
NASCAR fans. The brief called for us to reaffirm the cultural connections of God, Country, and Family that many Nascar
fans see as the heart of their sport. To that end, we were asked to build around the tagline… “I believe in Family, I believe
in Country, I believe in Nascar” and to incorporate audio from pre-race prayers.

Since most of our Nascar work in the past tended to focus on power, thrills, and speed, it was a welcome change to go
for a more flesh and blood approach. We produced three different takes on the “I Believe” theme. For “Diner” we relied
on a very simple slice of life vignette to evoke a sense of shared culture and community. For “Projection”, we showed how
true Nascar fans self-identify the sport as actually being a part of their very homes. And for “Track”, we shot at a race to
tap into the self-contained community that springs up at Nascar tracks every week during the season.

CREDITS

Agency – Fox Sports Design
Client – Fox Sports Marketing

Fox Sports Design

EVP Marketing – Eric Markgraf
SVP/ Creative Director – Robert Gottlieb
VP On-Air Promotions – Bill Battin
Creative Director – Guillermo Lecuona
Creative Director – Mark Simmons
Edit – Kirk Smith
Music & Sound Design – Mic Brooling

Live Action Shoot

Director/DP – Guillermo Lecuona
Producer – Lissa Weiss
Production Coordinator – Rita Mazmanian

[See post to watch QuickTime movie]

If it’s Sunday morning then it’s time to deliver some NFL action to fans around the country. King & Country designed and delivered the concept of an NFL Delivery Center where all your football goodness is packed up and shipped out every week. Efrain and the boys teamed up with Fox CD Mark Simmons to shoot the live-action pieces, then the effects team at La Huella and Sway came aboard to bring the CG to life.

CREDITS

Agency: Fox Sports Design

EVP Marketing – Eric Markgraf
SVP/Creative Director – Robert Gottlieb
Creative Director – Mark Simmons
VP On-Air Promotions – Bill Battin
Producer – Keith Hritz
Production Coordinator – Rita Mazmanian
Additional Design – Christian DeCastro
Flame – Kevin Prendiville, Marguerite Cahill, Philip Ineno
Audio Design – Mic Brooling
Editor – Greg Thanos / Kirk Smith

King and Country

Executive Producer – Jerry Torgerson
Director/Creative Director – Efrain Moñtanez
Head of Production – Drew Neujahr
Designer – Greg Herman

Sway

Creative Director – Mark Glaser
Visual Effects Supervisor – Aaron Powell
Executive Producer – Meredith Machial
Producer – Justin Herber
CG Artists: Robert Glazer, Steven Wang, Thor Benitez, Cesar Chavez, Art Sayan
Compositor – Brian Begun

Live Action Shoot

Production Company – Marsha Hunt Productions
Directors – Mark Simmons, King & Country
Producer – Marsha Hunt
Producer – Lissa Weiss
Director of Photography – Tom McGrath
Art Director – Greg Blair

La Huella Visual Effects

3D/2D Supervision: Jérôme Debève
3D/2D Supervision: Juan Antonio Ruiz

3D Artists
Antonio Lado
David Gonzalez
Gerardo Arpide
Vanesa Iglesias

2D Artists
Thiago Dantas
Regis Barbey

Music – “Fallen” by Franz Ferdinand

]]> http://foxsportsdesign.com/2009/10/nfl-delivery-center/feed/ 0 http://foxsportsdesign.com/2009/08/fox-fantasy-football/ http://foxsportsdesign.com/2009/08/fox-fantasy-football/#comments Fri, 28 Aug 2009 22:52:54 +0000 admin http://foxsportsdesign.com/?p=638 So what do we do with a Fantasy Football spot where we’re not allowed to use any NFL footage, stills or logos, and we also had no screen grabs, artwork, or images from the website to use?]]>

[See post to watch QuickTime movie]

So what do we do with a Fantasy Football spot where we’re not allowed to use any NFL footage, stills or logos, and we
also had no screen grabs, artwork, or images from the website to use? Well, what the hell, let’s blow up some footballs!

Seemed like a plan, so off we went armed with a 5000 fps Phantom camera, a bunch of TNT, and a bucket full of footballs
filled with everything from glitter to milk. The pyro guy told us the blast would be big enough that it would make anyone
who was within twenty feet of it…”bleed from their lungs and when they get home and go to bed they will never wake up.”
Now tell me, who couldn’t resist that?

Naturally, we had to test his theory so we all stood within twenty feet of it, and we’re happy to report nobody experienced
bleeding lungs or excessively high doses of death. Truly a success all around.

Directors: Blake Danforth and Guillermo Lecuona

]]> http://foxsportsdesign.com/2009/08/fox-fantasy-football/feed/ 0 http://foxsportsdesign.com/2009/07/mlb-all-star-game-magnet/ http://foxsportsdesign.com/2009/07/mlb-all-star-game-magnet/#comments Thu, 02 Jul 2009 22:27:51 +0000 admin http://foxsportsdesign.com/?p=593 The brief for our 2009 All-Star Game called for us to highlight that the game was in St. Louis. So we cycled through “St. Louis” ideas and naturally kept focusing on the Arch.]]> [See post to watch QuickTime movie]

The brief for our 2009 All-Star Game called for us to highlight that the game was in St. Louis. So we cycled through
“St. Louis” ideas and naturally kept focusing on the Arch. After several weeks of banging our heads against the wall trying
to think of Arch ideas, we finally figured out that the Arch looked an awful lot like one of those magnets you got in 5th grade
science class. And since magnets are really good at picking things up, we could have the Arch pick up All-Star players and
fans and bring them to St. Louis for the game.

“We were thrilled to have a concept that really tied the arch and the All-Star Game together.” said Robert Gottlieb, Fox Sports
Marketing SVP/Creative Director, “But our excitement was pretty quickly tempered by the realization that, great, we have this
idea, now how in the world do we actually pull this off?”

Step one; we called on our friends at La Huella in Madrid to handle the VFX. They must have been knee-deep in Mojitos
when we called, because they agreed to do it.

Step two; get MLB stars to agree to let us shoot them (no small task since the baseball season had already started and we
were repeatedly told by The Powers That Be “There is no way you will get players to film with you during the season!”) But
with a huge assist from the MLB Marketing team, our VP/On-Air Bill Battin somehow moved the mountains, shook the trees,
and managed to convince a host of MLB superstars, agents, PR people, Club officials, and Stadium Operations personnel to
allow us to film the players…at the stadiums…on game days.

So we packed up the green screens and headed out to St. Louis, Philly, Boston, and New York to shoot the players while
Mark Simmons and his plate team darted in and out of various stadiums filming all the plates we would need for compositing.
We finished up back home in LA with a location shoot day and a stage day for stunts, threw it all into a blender and…voila,
another All-Star extravaganza.

CREDITS

Agency: Fox Sports Design

EVP Marketing – Eric Markgraf
SVP/Creative Director – Robert Gottlieb
VP On-Air Promotions – Bill Battin
Creative Director – Mark Simmons
Director On-Air Promotions – Jason Dodd
Design – Kevin Prendiville & Chrisitan DeCastro
Flame color/compositing/finishing – Kevin Prendiville & Thomas Downs
Edit – Kirk Smith
Sound Design – Mic Brooling
Marketing Coordinator – Rita Mazmanian

Live Action Shoot

Production Company – Marsha Hunt Productions
Producers – Marsha Hunt & Lissa Weiss
Director – Robert Gottlieb
DP – Tom McGrath
Art Director – Paul Bickel
Stunt Coordinator – Joe Box
Second Unit Director – Mark Simmons
Second Unit Producer – Jason Dodd
Second Unit Camera – Bennett Cerf
Hand of God and Bonus Camera – Guillermo Lecuona

La Huella Visual Effects

3D/2D Supervision -Jérôme Debève
3D/2D Supervision – Juan Antonio Ruiz

3D artists
Juan Antonio Ruiz
Antonio Lado
David Gonzalez
Gerardo Arpide
Miquel Angel Corominas
Vanesa Iglesias
Martin Contel

2D/Post
Jérôme Debève
Régis Barbey
Thiago Dantas
Ricardo Gomez
Daniel Bryka
Patricia Martin


Music – “Show Me What I’m Looking For” by Carolina Liar

Having trouble keeping track of all the brand new MLB ballparks? Maybe you need the ultimate MLB GPS mapping
system to help you locate Fox’s game of the week? It’s not for the dashboard of your car, it’s our new MLB package that
looks so cool I’m sure Google Maps is thinking “how did they do that?”.

Well, we have Superfad to thank for this cool package. The concept really began as a simple idea on paper that had
limitless potential. The timeline was quick and our in-house design team got involved, and early collaboration with
Superfad helped to flesh out a dimensional, topographic, and lively environment. “This kind of creative collaboration is
rare but Superfad graciously welcomed the input, specifically on some nice design from in house designer, Christian
DeCastro,” Creative Director Blake Danforth pointed out.

The design was one thing but the execution and animation of this package was no small miracle. A 3D world complete
with cloud formations and flocking birds, accurate topography, push pins dropping and a threading string animation that
had a life of its own. These guys are good (Superfad), and they took this idea of the United States of Baseball and really
made it come alive. Each ballpark around the country is an architectural replica of the real thing and the 20 plus cities
feature signature icons and topographic details. Superfad sourced over 100 geographic data sets to create the 20
different locations. A library of over 400 textures was created to give each stadium it’s trademark details from the brick on
the walls to the grass on the field. Let’s just say Lewis and Clark would be impressed.

CREDITS

Title: “The United States of Baseball”
Client: Fox Sports
Product: MLB on Fox Toolkit
Production Company: Superfad

Agency: Fox Sports Design

Eric Markgraf – EVP Marketing
Robert Gottlieb – SVP/Creative Director
Bill Battin – VP On-Air Promotions
Blake Danforth – Creative Director
Keith Hritz – Producer
Tom Hok – Editor
Mic Brooling – Music & Audio Design
Jay Hayes – Audio Design
Thomas Downs – Flame
Christian DeCastro – Designer

Production Company: Superfad

3D/2D Supervision
Executive Creative Director: Will Hyde
Creative Director: David Viau
CGI Supervisor: Dade Orgeron
3D Generalists: John Cherniack, Sarah Bocket, Fatt Moley, Cody Smith, Phiphat Pinyosophon
Compositors: Jance Allen, Sohee Sohn, Paulo Diaz
Editor: Charles Jenson
Senior Producer: Chris Volckmann
Executive Producer: Rob Sanborn

Music – “Mistress Mable” by The Fratellis

Outstanding Sports Promotional Announcement
MLB All-Star Game ‘Rafters’
&
Outstanding Sports Promo
NASCAR on FOX ‘Engine City’ campaign.

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.