A baseball player made from computer graphics and pixels is lined up to bat against a dark background.

Sports Fuel

Fuelling the world’s greatest athletes is big business. When Gatorade looked to shift their brand into a data-driven space within sporting nutrition, they looked to Framestore to tell their story. The 3D team in LA looked to interpret the brand’s ambitions with a cool new graphic design. Executive Creative Director Aron Hjartarson spent several weeks masterminding potential techniques before settling on the idea of intricate webs of data points, animated to echo the movements of iconic sports stars.

basketball player made up of dynamic graphic designs
runners waiting in a set position before a race. there is one runner made up of dynamic graphic designs

Custom rigs and hardware were built to capture the vast amount of data needed to recreate multidimensional athletic performances. 3D artists then removed and rebuilt the athletes’ bodies in the scenes, filling the space instead with the dynamic graphic designs.

The locations too called for some CG trickery, with set extensions used to replicate the grandeur and scale of Olympic-worthy stadiums and courts. Technically speaking, the team used both Houdini and Maya for their 3D word, finding ever more sophisticated ways to bridge the two: ‘We were able to successfully and efficiently transfer over complex 3D data between the two packages, which allowed the artists to work seamlessly each day’, notes CG Supervisor Richard Shallcross.

Beau Leon added the grade, treading carefully to perfectly preserve the impact and detail of the 3D work - ‘an interesting challenge’, he notes, but one that came together beautifully in the master film.

I had never worked with Joe [Kosinski, Director] before. He is a visionary, and had a brilliant eye and angle for the spot. The outcome is something new and exciting for Gatorade, and we are very pleased with the final look.
Aron Hjartarson
Executive Creative Director
baseball player made up of dynamic graphic designs swinging a bat in a lit up stadium

Credits

Agency
TBWA\Chiat\Day
Director
Joseph Kosinski
Director of Photography
Claudio Miranda
Executive Creative Director
Executive Producer
James Razzall
Producer
Rachel Mariscal Creasey
Shoot Supervisor
Chris Eckhardt
Design Team
Jamie O'Hara, Duncan Elms, Matt Shadis
VFX Editor
Humberto Reynaga
Compositing Supervisor
JD Yepes
2D Team
Alex Unruh, Helgi Laxdal, Jonni Isaacs, Patswitch Jaritngarm
Colourist
Beau Leon
CG Lead
Richard Shallcross, Ryan McDougal
Line Producer
Morenike Dosu
3D Team
Alessandro Pepe, Aamir Karim, Brett Angelillis, Sashdy Arvelo, Evan Harbuck, Jacques Clement, Jessica Ramirez, John Cook, Lee Johnson, Michelle Lee, Nick Miller, Sean Dollins, Tommy Taylor, Wim Bien, Yuo Tengara
Colour Assistant
Jonah Braun
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