Nike 'Meteor'

Another scratch composite of linetest cuts, this time for Nike's "Meteor" spot, one of three animated commercials that Fates built for Curious Pictures and Nike at the end of 2008. Check out Fates.com for the finished version.

If you haven't seen it already, you can check out the lines for the "Punching Bag" spot here.

As with most Fates Crew productions, I was on keys and breakdowns and my man Craig Olsson was on tweens (and I believe he handled most of the shadow animation for this spot as well, though you don't see that here). After this stage it leaves my sphere and moves over to color and final composite for sound.

This mock composite is a little messier than the previous one, I'm afraid I didn't have a lot of time to throw it together. There's often no backgrounds, some rough tweens and some blocks where no tweens at all have been added. Given the scratch-composite timing, it's probable that some of the cuts could be tighter as well, but it gives you an idea of what these things look like in mid-process.

I think it mostly suffers in the torpedo-kick cut, 'cause you have to imagine that the giant meteor is rushing towards her feet right before she drills through it. That meteor was built on another Layer and brought up to meet her in composite. And there's a composite trick in c005 (where her foot extends out) that kills that solid stop you see there, but when the lines where built she was kept in consistent registration to make the tweens easier.

By now I got a sack full of tricks so big it buckles me bowlegged.

This style is a lot cleaner than the style we used in "Punching Bag", and there's advantages and drawbacks to using a cleaner line vs a rough one. I think I had the most fun with the blast-off cut, and in doing all of the effects layers, ring bursts and so forth. They're a bit trickier than they look, but much more forgiving than character work.



©2009 Studio Fates & Nike. Check out nikewomen.com and you can see the ad campaign, including the final commercials. Dig around the interwebs for the Nike Women ads or the Sister One shoes, and I bet you'll find 'em in nice QT versions as well.

Feel free to ask any question you like, but be aware that I'm restricted from talking about certain specifics. I've categorized this under "Digital" because even though it's largely constructed through traditional techniques, it's entirely digitally drawn. Then again, so's pretty much every modern animated production, regardless of apparent finish, so...? Just the same, it'd be nice if DA's categories regarding animation would stay consistent for more than a couple months *ahem*.