A52 Uses Massive To Place 15,000 Spectators Under the St. Louis Arch

A52 Uses Massive 2.0 to Put 15,000 Virtual Actors at St. Louis Arch in Budweiser "Everyday Heroes" Ad

Thursday 23 June 2005

Award–winning Los Angeles visual effects and design company A52 today detailed their animation and visual effects work for a new Budweiser broadcast spot from Waylon Ad in St. Louis. The :60 commercial "Everyday Heroes" debuted widely during high–profile programming on Memorial Day weekend, featuring innovative visual effects feats including the team’s first–ever use of Massive – the artificial–crowd–generating animation system developed specifically to support production on "The Lord of the Rings" movie trilogy. The spot will continue airing through July 4.

At the end of April, Anheuser–Busch announced its "Here’s to the Heroes" cross–country tour, sending one 8–horse Clydesdale team from New York and a second from San Francisco – each accompanied by its own mobile television studio – to major cities along the routes to St. Louis, where both teams will meet on July 3. In some 21 cities along the way, citizens participating in tour events can send messages of pride and appreciation to our nation’s troops and take part in other patriotic activities and celebrations. The cinematic "Everyday Heroes" spot tells the story of the tour, crafted by the creative team from agency Waylon Ad and the project’s director, Academy Award–winning cinematographer Bob Richardson of Tool of North America. Additional information on the tour is online here: www.ClydesdalesAcrossAmerica.com

Based upon its close working relationship with leading editorial company Rock Paper Scissors and Kirk Baxter, the project’s editor, the team from A52 earned its supporting role on the project.

The project’s creative called for a magical glimpse into the future to occur at the spot’s end, featuring a crowd of 15,000 celebrating the tour’s patriotic causes and the two Clydesdale teams coming together in St. Louis. To create that crowd, A52’s 3D animator Craig "Xray" Halperin used Massive version 2.0 to generate a group of 10,000 animated people surging toward the Clydesdales. "Using Massive allowed us to generate the crowds for these shots quickly and interactively," said Halperin, who learned to use the software over a period of weeks in support of this project. "I showed the client placement and overall motion of the crowd in Massive and was able to instantly make adjustments based on their direction."

While Halperin was getting up–to–speed on Massive, A52’s Patrick Murphy took the lead as on–set visual effects supervisor, and together with VFX producer Ron Cosentino, joined the production team for their two–day shoot in St. Louis which wrapped some 20 days of location filming. The goals for A52’s VFX team on location included ensuring that footage of the Clydesdales shot in St. Louis would allow the horse team to easily be composited into footage of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge – and also advising the director and his team on shooting the live–action elements of the end crowd scene to ensure they had what they needed to finish the spot.

On the afternoon in St. Louis when Richardson was setting up his long list of final shots, A52 helped to place 200 extras so that they could easily film what was needed for any closeup shots on the crowd. With A52 planning to use Massive to generate thousands upon thousands of CGI attendees to complete the scene, Richardson was able to move quickly through a long night of shooting. "Bob was very receptive to our ideas on how to get the crowd plates to work, and he helped us get the shots that we needed to finish the spot," Murphy said. "I think he appreciated the fact that, once we spent a certain amount of time getting what we felt we needed, we were then willing to move on and not hold him back."

Back in the studio, Murphy and his fellow VFX artists Kirk Balden, Tim Bird, Justin Blaustein, Ben Looram and Scott Johnson used Discreet Flame and Inferno systems from Autodesk to complete several scenes. The Clydesdales were composited into footage on the Golden Gate Bridge, and extensive work was also done to finalize the St. Louis celebration scenes. For the wide shot showing the cityscape, the Arch and the riverfront, the VFX team turned a scene filmed during the day into night by taking a flat telecine pass and grading it down to get the feeling of nighttime, resulting in the city looking like it was out of power. "From there," Murphy said, "I painted lights into the windows of the city buildings by hand then tracked those in. For all the street lamps on the bridge leading into St. Louis, we tracked lighting street lights to each light, then we put pools of light all the whole way across the bridge." While the animated elements made–up the crowd in the wide celebration shot at the end, for the tighter crowd shots, Murphy used Flame for 2D placement of crowd elements as well as some 2,000 animated people Halperin created using Massive. For the finishing touches, A52’s team put stock footage fireworks in the end scenes, placed reflections in the water in front of the Arch and lit up the crowd.

"The people at A52 were great," said Waylon Ad’s project creative director/copywriter Cordell Jeffries. "It’s truly amazing what they were able to do with CGI, Flame and Inferno."

"A52’s work makes us wonder how much of what we see on television is actually real, and how much has been invented by a bunch of Mountain Dew–fueled artists with high–powered computers and phenomenal skills," added Aaron Evanson, Waylon’s project creative director/art director.

The inclusion of Nike "Magnet" in the 2005 AICP Show marks A52’s sixth consecutive year having its work honored in the show. Other recent honors include the Silver Clio Award for Visual Effects for the team’s work on Cadillac "Turbulence," Pat Murphy’s work on Ground Zero’s History Channel "Know Where You Stand" broadcast campaign earning top honors at the LA Advertising Club’s 2005 Belding Awards, and the team’s on–air design work for HBO and Cinemax being named a finalist in the 2005 BDA Awards (winners to be announced next week).

Waylon Ad’s project credits for Budweiser also include executive creative director Kipp Monroe and producer Kent Smith. Production was overseen by Tool’s executive producer Jennifer Siegel, head of production Amy DeLossa and line producer Kati Haberstock.

A52’s team on "Everyday Heroes" also included executive producer Mark Tobin. This project’s colorist was Sparkle of Complete Post in Hollywood. Along with Kirk Baxter, the editorial team from LA’s Rock Paper Scissors included executive producer Linda Carlson, producer Scott Friske and assistant editor Matt Murphy. The campaign’s music, composed by John Waddel and Will Parnell for Amber Music UK, was recorded by Amber’s John Robert Wood in the company’s Santa Monica studio. Amber’s executive producer is Michelle Curran. Loren Silber at Santa Monica’s Lime Studios handled the project’s final mix.

About A52

Established in 1997 as a home for the very latest high–end photo–real visual effects technologies and the industry’s most innovative and talented graphic design artists, West Hollywood visual effects and design company A52 creates award–winning imagery for the world’s most visually ambitious commercial and television projects. The company’s work has been earned AICP Show recognition for six consecutive years along with recent "Outstanding Commercial" Emmy, Andy, BDA, Belding, Clio, British Design and Art Direction, International Monitor, International Automotive Advertising, London International Advertising, One Show and PROMAX awards. For more information, please call Mark Tobin at 310.385.0851 or visit www.A52.com.