SOLID's Leap of Faith
From Mographwiki.net
Motion Design House SOLID's “Leap” of Faith
Is it a coincidence that NFL football and church are on the same day? For years, sports and religion have lived parallel lives in the hearts of Americans. Fans worship their team, the coach becomes their preacher, and the stadium their temple. Nowhere is this at its purest as in college sports. With school pride coursing through their veins, every game is a holy war, a battle that must be won in the name of every student and with victory had at any cost.
VP of Creative Services and Brand Identity, Roger Hyde approached SOLID, a full service Motion Design & Production Studio, based in Santa Monica, to bring the latest spot for DIRECTV to life. With total abandon and purity of emotion, they tackled the world of college basketball in their recently completed “ESPN Full Court.” The challenge was to capture the “essence” of the game, and in 30 seconds, tap into the primal urge to be a part of something great – to be a winner.
SOLID’s Creative Director, Thom Blackburn, obviously understands the heart and soul of collegiate sports. “When the game is on the line…all environmental factors vanish...the fans, the arena, the lights…it’s just you and your opponent,” said Blackburn. And thus, a concept was born. The SOLID creative team of designers, animators, and compositors were then charged with crafting a spot that distilled the drama, excitement, and passion of collegiate basketball into a thirty second pitch for DIRECTV’s 30 games per week package deal.
For this design concept, Executive Producer Jennifer Holstein knew she wanted “to deliver a spot where the viewer has intimate access to the game.” In order to accomplish this feat, SOLID employed sister company, Freddy’s Barn Service, to shoot live HD footage that SOLID would then blend with the standard supplied NCAA footage. Shooting the extra HD footage allowed the SOLID team to manipulate the focus of the players they roto’d out of the supplied footage by placing their HD players on the court at angles that you could only see as a player in the game; a huge advantage in keeping the spotlight on the court. However, using newly shot HD footage and NCAA footage supplied on Beta SP proved to be another challenge in itself. As if they were in the schools science lab, SOLID came up with treatment after treatment to apply to both mediums to bring all of the players together in one cohesive battle.
To allow for even more flexibility, SOLID created a virtual toolbox with the HD players. Again, the SOLID team wanted to show the heart of pure competition within the game and accomplished this by taking away the environment and stripping the visuals down to basic components defined only by colors that evoke pride, loyalty, and courage. Having a toolbox of players (offensive and defensive), team colors, and numbers, allowed SOLID the flexibility to work under a tight schedule and still allow undecided match-ups to later be determined.
The crowd, the action and the players literally jump off the page to the cheers of the fans. Stomping defense and the beats of the fight song bring you deeper into the echoes of the college gymnasium. The creative sound design by Human also stripped down the footage into sounds that even though you can’t sing along with, enter your soul to evoke the passion within the game.
HD footage shot live under the direction of SOLID, 3D renders and 2D Illustrations converged atop the most basic of all mediums – written communication. Crumpled paper serves as the foundation, while advanced visual elements are the words that tell the story. Ask yourself, after half-a-minute is your heart beating a little faster? Did you think just for one second about your team? Then their story was told and we can’t wait for the season to begin.
About Solid: SOLID is a full service Motion Design & Production Studio located in Santa Monica, CA. Part of SOLID’s success lies in their staff’s “daily diet,” consuming the tabloid glossies, fashion mags, entertainment news TV magazine shows, along with a generous intake of cable & network news and reality TV programming. Their Nerf basketball brainstorming session breaks allow for a free flow of staff absurdity where ridiculous ideas nurture and grow. SOLID is repped in the west by Keith Quinn.
