Conceived out of Arnold Worldwide and directed by RESET’s Johnny Hardstaff with VFX from MPC NY, the bold new spot launching New Balance’s “Always in Beta” global brand campaign embodies the brand’s promise to relentlessly improve, evolve and push its limits.
ABOUT THE PROJECT:
MPC’s CG & 2D team created over 50 complex VFX shots within six weeks, reimagining a fully CG storm breaking over the Moroccan-shot mountainside and engulfing the protagonist in an intense plume ofsports figures running, batting, smashing onwards towards even greater athletic accomplishments. VFX artists seamlessly composited the infinite host of athletes across the sequence of shots as they charge together through thedramatic storm.
Creative Travis Robertson said: “This project was full of creative and logistical riddles. Shooting a CG job of this scale on three continents, with 17 professional athletes and a small army of extras proved to be a truly massive undertaking.
But when the dust settled (no pun intended), we were left with an amazing visual spectacle we are all incredibly proud of. MPC did a fantastic job bringing the bizarre, colorful and violently poetic stormto life. From the countless hours of smoke tank and saltwater filming to the violent and dynamic bursts of color to the motion tracking and effects supervision throughout the storm, no detail was overlooked.”
The VFX-fuelled spot was filmed across Miami, London and Morocco over four weeks, featuring 17 pro-athletes including Miguel Cabrera, Robinson Cano, Jenny Simpson, Milos Raonic, Heather Watson and Aaron Ramsey. In addition to in-store, digital, and print advertising, the brand campaign features an online “Beta Hub” experience at newbalance.com/beta, which invites consumers to immerse themselves in all things Beta with stories featuring the brand’s athletes and product innovations.
VFX DETAILS:
In close collaboration with the director andArnold’s creative team, MPC’s artists, led by VFX supervisors Rob Walker and Vicky Osborn, took the creative reins to explore and enrich the storm sequences.
With a two-pronged approach to create the storm – the exterior and the interior – Rob comments on the process: “The starting point for the interior of the storm came from acloud tank element shoot in Miami, which provided most of the dramatic backgrounds. We shot some pretty amazing footage, and lots of it, at up to 100 frames-per-second with 5K resolution that allowed us to zoom into a part of the plate without compromising quality. In the end, we whittled down roughly 10 hours into 12 minutes of beautiful footage that formed the basis for the insideof the storm. We combined this with a simulated CG storm.”
In parallel, Houdini artists began R&D on the exterior of the storm, exploring its movement and developing its look. A key part of the agency brief was to have the storm mirror the structure of a wave, which proved to be challenging as the Houdini simulations were based on real world physics and scale. The rendered simulation would often produce quite random results, each one being totally unique.
“Our next stage wasto simulate the interior storm,” Rob continues. “Johnny’s boards had interesting sketches where you feel the storm chasing the athletes and partly swallowing them in it. This was something we found interesting and wanted todevelop. A key part of our creative decisions in designing the storm was the need to recognize the athletes rather than having them obscured or lost within it.”
The team designed a’kit of parts’ rendered in Houdini, offering flexibility and control incompositing the athletes’ prominence on-screen. This technique enabled the team to choreograph all manner of motion and intensity, and play with varying scalein the same shots.
The result is flawless cohesion across the film, ensuring the “Always in Beta” state of mind remained center stage in the dynamic yet ethereal New Balance storm.
Credits
Agency: Arnold Worldwide
Production Company: RESET
Director: Johnny Hardstaff
ECDs/Managing Partners: Pete Johnson & Wade Devers
SVP Creative Director/Copywriter: Greg Almeida
SVP Creative Director/Art Director: Travis Robertson
Agency Executive Producer: William Near
Agency Assistant Producer:Patrick Carney
Production Company Executive Producers: Dave Morrison & Jeff McDougall
Production Company Producer: Annabel Ridley
EditorPaul Hardcastle @ Cosmo Street
VFX MPC NY
Managing Director: Justin Brukman
Executive Producer: Camila De Biaggi
VFX Senior Producer: Armand Weeresinghe
VFX Supervisor/2D Lead: Rob Walker
VFX Supervisor/3D Lead: Vicky Osborn
VFX Team: Vanessa Lee, Andres Weber, Zach Zhao,Francois Duchesneau, Mitch Deoudes, Shawn Lipowski, Craig Sylvester,Kelly Bruce, Carl Fong, Alex Harding, ReginaldEmvula, Graeme Revell, Aleksandar Djordjevic, Jeric Pimentel, JonathanMcKee, Tobey Lindback, D. Venkatesan, EarnestVictor, Elangovan, Ganeshan, Ranajoy Kar, Sathya Narayanan, Gowri Shankar Velusamy D, Minju Thottiparambil Sukumaran, Debalina Dasgupta, Abdul Labeeb, Alex J., Ambalika Nandy, Amresh Kumar, Anupam Kumar, Bruno Roosewelt, Craig Savio Padua, Deepali Negi, K. Gandhiraj, Mithilesh.G, Manasa G K, Rajkumar R, S. Samson Samuel, Sravan Kumar, Yasasvini.V, Raju Ganesh S. & Vamsi Krishna Reddy
Grade MPC: Remote Grading
Colorist: George K
阿诺国际传播（Arnold Worldwide）连同纽约RESET制作公司旗下的导演约翰·哈达斯夫，与MPC纽约合作，为运动品牌新百伦的全新市场战役“Always In Beta” 打造了一个代表勇敢无畏精神的广告猛片。体现了品牌不懈改进、不断进取、力求一流理念的承诺。
项目介绍:
MPC的CG与2D的团队用了六周不到的时间就完成了50多个复杂的特效镜头，在摩洛哥的山上制造了一个完美的CG风暴，风暴席卷其中的各个体育明星，他们顶着风暴跑步、击球和扣杀，上演了比现实更佳的表演。视觉特效艺术家们把运动员们的各种动态镜头与CG风暴的肆虐完美无缝的结合起来。
创意特拉维斯·罗伯逊(Travis Robertson)说：“这个项目充满了创意和逻辑上的难度。虽然是三维后期项目，但它的拍摄规模庞大，横跨三大洲、有17个专业运动员参演，还有成支军队之多的群众演员，任务艰巨。当项目最终尘埃落定时，对于又创造的一次的视觉奇观，我们感到非常的自豪。活生生地呈现了一次奇幻、色彩丰富的风暴。从数不清多少小时的烟雾罐和海水的拍摄、到猛烈的爆破颜色、到动态追踪和有效监察风暴，我们对每一个细节都非常重视。”
视觉特效背景的拍摄跨越了迈阿密，伦敦和摩洛哥，共拍摄了四周，有17名专业运动员的参加，包括了卡布雷拉，罗宾逊卡诺，珍妮·辛普森，米洛斯·拉奥尼奇，希瑟·沃森和拉姆塞。除了在店内，数码和平面广告，品牌还推出了线上活动newbalance.com/beta，让消费者与Beta活动的相关运动员和创新产品进行互动。
技术解构:
由视觉特效主管罗布·沃克和维奇·奥斯本带领的MPC特效团队与导演及阿诺集团的创作团队密切合作。在创意简报后，开始着手打造完美的风暴。
制作团体分工协作，从风暴的外观和内在两方面开始做起。罗布在介绍制作过程中说：“风暴的外观来自我们在迈阿密拍摄的烟雾罐的烟雾，它成为风暴戏剧来临背景的主要元素。我们还拍摄了很多很赞的画面，用5K分辨率、每秒100帧的速度拍摄，既使放大细节也不会影响画面质量。最后，我们把10多个小时的素材剪接成12分钟的精华，也是风暴的核心元素。然后我们把这些元素与CG风暴完美结合。”
与此同时，Houdini的软件设计师开始研究风暴的外观及探索它的移动。广告公司的brief对风暴的要求最关键的一点是要让它看起来像波浪袭来，这是对Houdini模拟功能的挑战，因为它的设计是基于现实的物理和规模计算的。它模拟的效果往往很随机，每一个看起来都很不一样。
“我们的下一个阶段是模拟风暴的内部” 罗布继续说， “约翰的故事脚本很有意思，你会感觉到风暴追逐着运动员并把他们吞没。我们觉得很有趣，并想朝着这个方向发展。我们在设计风暴时做的最重要的决策是必须可以让人认出这些运动员，而不能让他们淹没并消失在风暴当中”
团队专门设计了一个Houdini “工具包”，为合成运动员在屏幕上的亮相提供了灵活性和控制能力。这种技术为团队编排所有方式的运动和密度带来可能性，并可在同一个镜头里设置不同的场面规模。
最终的效果呈现出画面无暇的整合力，让 “Always in Beta”的竟赛心态在新伯伦猛烈的风暴当中长存不倒。
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