Pure Fantasy Football
The Mill has released details and images of the substantial vfx work it carried out on the football-focussed ‘Write the Future’ spot for Nike by W+K Amsterdam and director Alejandro González Iñárritu.
Ronaldo, Rooney and some of their fellow footballing superstars may be looking resolutely to the future after their South African adventures, but this epic ad features some star turns in new settings.
Showing before and during the World Cup, it features stars including Wayne Rooney, Christiano Ronaldo, Didier Drogba, Ronaldinho, Ribery, Theo Walcott, Cesc Fabregas and Fabio Cannavaro. The ad shows how the slightest margin of error can lead to ultimate glory or utter dejection, as is the case when Rooney misses a crucial pass and is sent into a physical decline that sees him ending up washed up, bearded, overweight and living in a caravan. The blockbuster commercial’s other highlights include a giant statue of Ronaldo and cameos from Homer Simpson, actor Gael Garcia Bernal and Kobe Bryant.
In one of The Mill’s biggest jobs to date, the visual effects team worked on a staggering 236 VFX shots made up of 106 football shots which included a CG stadium complete with flags and banners, crowd replication using Massive, grass clean up and replacement, and full rotoscope of all the players.
The other 84 effects shots included joining up Rooney and Roger Federer’s ping pong match, creating film premiere posters and inserting a matte painting of an industrial background to the scene featuring Rooney as a groundsman. The team also built the YouTube and Facebook sequences from various elements as well as creating a fully CG satellite and Earth matte painting. Finally there was the enormous CG stadium build and matte painting work for the futuristic and fantasy Christiano Ronaldo Stadium.
The work did not stop there. Once the ad was completed, Beam delivered 14 worldwide global adapts – which were done centrally at The Mill – directly to international broadcasters, as well as delivering bespoke material for localised reversioning to 6 countries and generic HD and SD digital assets to 31 other countries.
“This is one the biggest commercial VFX projects The Mill has ever undertaken and in such a short time frame of just five weeks,” said Stephen Venning, Executive Producer of the spot. “I can confidently say that there is no other company in the world who could have achieved this level of creativity and believability, and this is quite simply due to the dedication and skill of our talented team of visual effects artists.”
See more work by The Mill on Fired By Design
Metadata
Agency: Wieden+Kennedy, Amsterdam
Creatives: Mark Bernath, Eric Quennoy, Stuart Harkness, Freddie Powell
Producer: Elissa Singstock, Olivier Klonhammer
Production Company: Anonymous / Independent
Director: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
DP: Emmanuel Lubezki aka Chivo
Editing Company: Work Post
Editor: Rich Orrick, Ben Jordan
International Production Adaptation Management: Nickie Stevens @ The Pool TV
Post Production: The Mill London, The Mill NY
The Mill London Team
Exec Producer: Stephen Venning
Producer: Matt Williams
Line Producer: Allison Cain
Versioning Producer: Louise Sharp
Shoot Supervisors: Neil Davies, Tom Bussell, Austen Humphries, Vince Baertsoen, Des Anwar, Darren Christie
Scheduler: Colette Boyle
Beam Production Management: Kate Georgiou
Colourists: Seamus O’Kane, James Bamford, Aubrey Woodiwiss
Lead 2D: Neil Davies
Lead Flame: Neil Davies
Flame: Rich Roberts, Grant Connor, Pete Rypstra
Flame Assist: Leon Woods, Danny Morris, Paul Downes, John Price, Ben Turner, Zoe Cassey Hayes, Dawn Bowrey
2D Roto: Kirti Dave, Mervyn New, Laura Jacobs, Mark Titchener, Laraib Atta
Shake: Darren Christie, Vanessa duQuesnay, Donal Nolan
Smoke: JP
Lead 3D: Tom Bussell
3D: Juan Brockhurst, Edward Hicks, Dan Adams, Daniel Jahnel, Amy Macdonald, Sergio Xisto, Eva Kuehlmann, Ed Shires, Nikki Atkinson, Adrian Russell , Sean Whelan
3D Tracking: Matthew Salisbury, James Lakin, Ben Thomas, Anton Smit, Joe Dennis, Sean Whelan, Eliot Speed
Matt Painting: Dave Gibbons , Can Y. Sanalan
After Effects: Pete Mellor
The Mill NY Team
Producers: Dan Roberts, Boo Wong
Lead 2D: Westley Sarokin
2D: Corey Brown, Suzanne Dyer, Rosalind Paradis, Iwan Zwarts, Jade Kim, Gigi Ng, Robert Bruce, Randy Krueger, Brendan O’Neil, Albert Cook, Alex Lovejoy, Melissa Graff, Tristan Wake, Jeff Robins, Keith Sullivan, Claudia D’Enjoy
Lead 3D: Ben Smith
3D: Wyatt Savarese, Chris Bernier, Ajit Menon
Kit: Flame, Shake, Combustion, After Effects, Maya, Massive
