Fox Sports Design proves ‘You Can’t Script October’ during the MLB Post Season on FOX.

For several years Fox Sports has marketed the MLB post-season with the line, “You Can’t Script October”. This year they moved forward with that branding line by looking backwards for an old idea from a previous project.

“In 2003 we did some work-up on baseball players playing on fields of type. We never produced the idea at the time, but we revisited the concept and realized it would be a perfect fit to house our “You Can’t Script October” line for this years playoffs” said Fox Sports SVP/Creative Director Robert Gottlieb.


[See post to watch QuickTime movie]

2003 Test 1


[See post to watch QuickTime movie]

2003 Test 2


Led by Fox Sports Creative Director Rob Hoover, the team built a practical newsstand and street corner set on a green screen stage, creating a world where headlines change, covers suddenly animate, and players burst from the confines of the printed page as an entire Newsstand comes to life.

With only two weeks to post the spot after the shoot, Eight VFX modeled, animated and composited all explosions and paper effects, integrating rotoscoped players into all angles of the meticulously matched in-camera plates. Fox Sports Flame Designer Thomas Downs stalked the streets of Hollywood during the midnight hours capturing backgrounds he used to seamlessly merge the stand into its realistic environment.

As Eight VFX was finishing their effects shots, Fox Sports Kirk Smith cut the spot to the music of The Killers “When You Were Young”, and Fox’s Jay Hayes created the sound design that brought this surreal journey to the Fall Classic to life…

Live Action

Director – Rob Hoover

DP – Tom McGrath

Art Director – Paul Bickel

Production Company – Marsha Hunt Productions

Fox Sports

EVP Marketing – Eric Markgraf

SVP/Creative Director – Robert Gottlieb

Creative Director – Rob Hoover

Producer – Keith Hritz

Flame Compositing & Design – Thomas Downs

Editor – Kirk Smith

Sound Design – Jay Hayes

Magazine Design – Sinbad Kazakian

Eight VFX

Executive Producer – Baptiste Andrieux

VFX Supervisor – Jean Marc Demmer

VFX Producer – Marsi Frey

3D Supervisor – Fred Hopp

Year – 2008

Yankee Stadium’s iconic facade, along with giant billboards of today’s greatest baseball
stars, magically appear across New York City to herald the arrival of the final All-Star Game
ever at legendary Yankee Stadium.

To promote the landmark final All-Star Game at Yankee Stadium this July, the Fox Sports in-house Creative Group came
up with a concept of having Yankee Stadium’s famous white facade animate and appear on iconic New York landmarks,
while massive mechanical billboards of todays star players simultaneously start appearing on top of skyscrapers. To achieve
the visual effects needed to bring the spot to life, Fox Sports’ creative team once again partnered with Paris based visual
effects house BUF.

FOX Sports SVP/Creative Director Robert Gottlieb and Designer Guillermo Lecuona created the campaign based on boards
designed by Lecuona, and Gottlieb and Lecuona co-directed the 2 day live action shoot on location in New York. Fox Sports
Flame artist Kevin Prendiville was able to previz many of the animation sequences, which allowed FOX Sports and BUF to
lock in the editorial before shooting a single frame. The final spot features a seamless blend of stock footage, stills, and
35mm film along with RED camera footage shot in New York.

“The biggest challenge we faced on our shoot was getting the cameo by Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriquez. We had them on
set for about 9 minutes, and we shot in front of the stadium just a few hours before a game against the Red Sox, so it was
a really crazy scene to pull off” said Gottlieb.

Editor Kirk Smith found the perfect track to convey the emotional sense of awe and anticipation the spot called for with
“Lazy Eye” by Silversun Pickups, and the amazingly detailed sound design by Fox Sports Mic Brooling brought New York
to life.

Live Action

Director - Robert Gottlieb and Guillermo Lecuona
DP - Mott Hopfel
Producer - Lissa Weiss

Fox Sports

EVP Marketing - Eric Markgraf
SVP/Creative Director - Robert Gottlieb
Design & Creative - Guillermo Lecuona
Executive Producer - Bill Battin
Coordinating Producer - Becky Schaefer
Editor - Kirk Smith

Flame Compositing & Design - Kevin Prendiville
Sound Design - Mic Brooling

BUF

Supervisor - Lucas Salton
VFX Supervisor & Flame artist - Thibault Debaveye
Producer - Audrey-Anne Bazard

Year - 2008

Every year we seem to do an All-Star campaign that features shooting a boatload of players and hoping for the
best when we get back into the edit bay. This year was no exception. The brief called for showing the players
having fun and to incorporate San Francisco and cable cars. Done and done. Technically, it was a bit of a bear.
We had to film the players on green screen in their Florida and Arizona training camps, then months later film
plates in San Francisco, and then composite it all together to appear that the players were actually riding around
in San Francisco. A second major challenge was that while we were in the edit and composite stage, players
had to be constantly swapped out due to injury or poor performance that would make them ineligible to be all stars.
Special thanks to Olivier, Tibo, and the team at BUF for making us once again look like we (almost) know what
we’re doing.

Live Action

Director - Robert Gottlieb and Mark Denyer-Simmons
DP - Stefan Czapsky
Producer - Lissa Weiss & Marsha Hunt

Fox Sports

EVP Marketing - Eric Markgraf
SVP/Creative Director - Robert Gottlieb
SVP On Air Production - Chris Hannan
Creative Director - Mark Denyer-Simmons
Executive Producer - Bill Battin
Production Manager - Becky Schaefer
Editor - Tom Hok
Sound Design - Mic Brooling
Flame Compositing - Thomas Downs
Design - Tom Neston

BUF

Creative Director/VFX Supervisor - Olivier Dumont
Lead Flame - Thibault Debaveye

We set out to create an imaginative look that felt retro and modern at the same time. Using Jules Verne and
H.G. Wells as inspiration, we designed an intricate time machine device that could televise upcoming match-ups.
The machine was built practically and filmed from various angles to give the promo a vivid cinematic look.
We teamed up with our old friends at Salt (Cari Chadwick, Eric Fulford, and Ian Douglass) who once again were
awesome to collaborate with.

Credits

EVP Fox Sports - Eric Markgraf
SVP/Creative Director - Robert Gottlieb
Creative Director - Joshua Nichols
Executive Producer - Paul Andraos
Visual Effects and Graphics - Salt
Editor - Junior McRae
Sound Design - Jay Hayes
Music - Finger Music

A room full of editors hard at work piecing together some of fall baseball’s most exciting finishes? OK so they dont really
edit baseball footage on a steenbeck anymore, they never did. Besides as the tagline says “You Can’t script (or Edit)
October” anyway. But we thought it would be cool to breakout the vintage machines, hear the sprockets roar and listen to
the film roll through the gate of the projector. Co-Director Mason Nicolls of The Captain designed a sleek set and framed
some great shots of the vintage equipment in action.
*Despite the perilous nature of this old equipment nobody lost a finger in the filming of this spot.

Credits

EVP Fox Sports - Eric Markgraf
SVP/Creative Director - Robert Gottlieb
Co-Director - Blake Danforth
Co-Director - Mason Nicoll The Captain (Look FX)
Executive Producer - Ellen Stafford The Captain (Look FX)
DP - Kevin Sarnoff
Prod Designer - Penny Mahar
Editor - Tom Hok
Compositing - Marguerite Cargill & Greg Paul Malone
Sound Design - Jerry Garszva

The MLB All-Star game is the biggest and most watched event of the summer. It was an epic challenge that
needed an equally grand idea. The game was in Pittsburgh or “Steeltown” and the concept was to gather 20
of baseball’s best players and have them play an impromptu game on the construction site of an enormous
baseball monument seventy stories above the ground. We began many months before the season began
coordinating a massive shoot with a green screen construction set at several baseball training camps in Florida
and Arizona. We had to work backwards by shooting the talent first and design the sets and action around our
shot plates. Working with Blind of Santa Monica and The Third Floor we mapped out a 3D previz of the spot.
Hero scenes were textured, lit, and composited with still background plates and matte paintings. Week by
week we altered our cut as player injuries, trades and performances changed the final makeup of the final
All-Star roster.

Credits

EVP of Marketing - Eric Markgraf
VP/Creative Director - Robert Gottlieb
SVP Marketing - Chris Hannan
Creative Director - Blake Danforth
Executive Producer - Bill Battin
Directors - Robert Gottlieb & Blake Danforth
Visual Effects Supervisor - Cari Chadwick
Production Manager - Becky Schaefer
Production Assistant - Lauren Panitz
Design & Animation - Blind
Additional Design & Compositing - Philip Shtoll, Marguerite Cargill, Tom Neston
Editor - Tom Hok
Sound Design - Jay Hayes

Dave Mellot pitched this absolutely perfect idea for the baseball playoffs. We teamed up with Chris Do, Rick,
and the gang at Blind once again to bring this to life. Chris directed the insert stuff, Dave did the big set, and when
we cut it with Franz Ferdinand’s “Jacqueline” the spot really came together.

Fox Sports

EVP Marketing, Fox Sports - Eric Markgraf
VP/Creative Director, Fox Sports - Robert Gottlieb
Director - David Mellott
Creative Director - David Mellott
Executive Producers - Bill Battin, Paul Andraos
Design / Animation - Blind

Fox Sports Design/Animation - Guillermo Lecuona
Editor - Phillip Shtoll
VFX - Gavin Milovich
Sound Design - Jay Hayes

A few years back we saw a piece in the LA Weekly about a cool, old style print shop in Los Feliz. We kept the clipping on our wall until the time was ripe, then sent our friends at Salt out to videotape the place. Sure enough Eric and Ian found lots of cool bits and bobs there, teamed up with Mark Simmons and, voila, our new MLB spot was born.

Credits

Fox Sports
Eric Markgraf - EVP marketing
Robert Gottlieb - VP/creative director
Mark Denyer-Simmons - Creative Director / Director
Paul Andraos - Executive Producer
Mic Brooling - Sound Design
Tom Hok - Editor
Renee Chamblin - Flame
Cari Chadwick - Flame

SALT
Eric Fulford - Creative Director / Director / Designer / Animator
Ian Douglass - Creative Director / Director / Designer / Animator
Danny Yoon - Inferno
Joaquen Kavin - Production Artist
Gregg Katano - Producer

There’s been a lot of pop-up book spots in the last year or two, but we swear we went with this before the glut
came! Chris Do and the team at Blind pitched a pop-up book idea at the same time Dave Mellot pitched it (must
have been something in the water). Our in-house team of Phillip Shtoll, Tom Neston, Guillermo Lecuona, and
Cari Chadwick did an amazing job muscling this through and bringing our baseball pop-up book to life.

Credits

EVP Fox Sports - Eric Markgraf
SVP/Creative Director - Robert Gottlieb
Creative Director - David Mellott
Executive Producer - Paul Andraos
Mac Design & 3D Animation - Tom Neston, Philip Shtoll
Flame Design - Cari Chadwick
Flame Compositing - Marguerite Cargill
Additional Mac Design - Sinbad
Editor - Lauren Giordano

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