Sprint: "Speedway" TV Commercial by Goodby Silverstein & Partners

Client: Sprint
Spot Title: Speedway
Duration: 1 x :30
Agency: Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco
Creative Director: Franklin Tipton
Group Creative Director: Paul Stechschulte
ACD/Writer: Ty Hutchinson
ACD/Art Director: John O'Hea
Executive Producer: Joshua Reynolds
Assistant Producers: Meagan Moore, Jessica Mehl
Account Director: Mark Schermers
Account Manager: Taleah Mona-Lusky
Project Manager: Christine Piper
Music/SD Producer: Sarah Gavigan
Production Company: Supply & Demand
Director: Jeffrey Plansker
Director of Photography: Neil Shapiro
Line Producer: Tina Nakane
Visual Effects: MassMarket, New York
Design: Gordon Waltho
Executive Producer: Angela Bowen
Producer: Nancy Nina Hwang
Assistant Producer: Cally Morton
Animation Director: Jeffrey Dates
Animators: Jason Goodman, Boris Ustaev, Will Robertson
3D Leads: Florian Witzel, Jacob Slutsky, Dave Barosin
3D: Eban Byrne, Andy Hara, Chris Santioanni, Xuan Siefert, Jimmy Gass, Jonah Friedman, Eric Lampi, Kris Rivel, Brandi Lee
Stadium Look Development: Marco Iozzi
Lead Flame: Jamie Scott
Flame: Julian Ford, Chris Staves, Nick Tanner, John Ciampa
Editor: Noah Herzog, General Editorial
Executive Producer: Robert Parker
Assistant Editor: Matt Dunlap
Sound Design: Bill Chesly, HenryBoy
Producer: Kate Gibson

Notes on "Speedway" written by Jeffrey Dates, Animation Director, MassMarket
Our creative challenge for the project was to bring identifiable Nascar cars and the Bristol stadium to reality in CGI. This was a departure for Sprint and our agency client Goodby, Silverstein & Partners as all previous spots in the campaigns had used live action cars shot on location. The objective of moving the cars to CG was to allow more flexibility in creating camera angles, and provide cost efficiencies. Using models heavily modified from Turbosquid, MassMarket textured the skins of ten hero Nascars and produced as many as 30 cars in some shots. We shot texture reference for the stadium shots on the track at Bristol, Tennessee, capturing HDRI lighting reference, as well as every bit of location detail that was to be recreated in CG.
The stadium model and textures had been created by PDI for the print campaign. MassMarket added necessary detail to the textures, lit the stadium and placed crowds in the stands and vehicles in the infield. The entire stadium was then lit to work on the phone and in the live action plate of the garage.
Sprint's campaign focuses on long exposure light painting designs. This effect was requested to be applied to the Nascars in the form of iconic monsters that represent each drivers team. The long-exposure light line that made up the monsters was a particular challenge for the MassMarket team. The effect had been produced in many different ways in previous spots - shot practically, Hand-Drawn, and CG. This time around, each monster-car needed a unique line quality and personality in CG, resulting in an experimental R&D process to establish the look. Always we wanted to balance the artistic beauty of the line animation with preserving the narrative of the monsters action throughout the spot.
In the process of production, our team watched hours of Nascar footage for inspiration for smoke, sparks, crashes, animation and lighting. We became fans of the sport, and were delighted to partner with our client Goodby, Silverstein & Partners to realize a full CG race, with stadium, crowds, crashes, sparks, and long-exposure light monsters fighting it out! It's the kind of spot every boy dreams about.
The project was created in XSI, with additional particle layers created in 3D Studio Max. All shots were composited in Flame.