Desigual Motorsport Team was doing pretty well in the Spain kart scene, and wanted to take a step forward by seducing new potential sponsors. Corporate video was the best business card, so we took some cameras and went to Oropessa circuit to capture the whole thing.
The entire production would dance around the phrase “A Formula for the Future”, as the long term intention of the team is to reach the highest competition heaven…
Anyway, this slogan would really make sense only if something directly linked to it happened at some point of the actual final video. Footage so far was correct for the 90% of the video, but wasn’t enough. We decided to shot in Montmeló GP circuit, faking a duel between the two DSM karts which, just as they hit the finish line, would transform into formula cars.
Live video and CG integration was a little hard to achieve. Mostly because it was my first true single-seat VFX job: from shooting on location to final grading. Did it all. I mean my shots, not the entire film. However, I finally got it to work.
Nuke at the beginning and end of the rainbow for camera tracking, basic reference geo, and final compositing, Maya in between for cars texturing, lighting, animation and rendering.
The tricky part was, by far, the metamorphosis… We had such stressing brainstorm sessions that we were this close to actually making it rain…
Due date caught us still making editorial changes and didn’t have any more time to come up with a Transformers solution… Tried several things (some of them I really liked), but in the end we realised time was against us. Took the laziest path: flash transition. Embarrasing. One thing I’ll never show you.
Three separate pieces came out of this project: full 13′ Team film (featuring the transformation finale mentioned above), one short 1′ teaser and one 30″ tv spot (featured on this post). Pulled one more VFX shot for the 1′ teaser and full CG shots for the shortest one, kind of a very dark set, lighted by camera flashes from behind. Also took the editorial for these two shots and delivered two simple but very appealing pieces.
Good job overall. Good times driving junior competition karts at Oropessa. These babies run just like hell.