Studio collaborates with Sky Creative from pre-production through shoot and VFX to create an adrenaline-fueled spot to celebrate the start of the 2023 racing season.
Framestore VFX and Framestore Pictures recently collaborated with Sky Creative to produce Enjoy the Ride, an adrenaline-fueled commercial for Sky Sports that celebrates the start of the 2023 Formula 1 season.
The creative studio recently unveiled an exclusive making of the short showcasing the VFX work that helped power this racing extravaganza to the finish line (watch below).
Supported end to end by Framestore Pictures and Framestore, from pre-production to shoot, VFX, and with grade by Steffan Perry at sister company, Company 3, the project, directed by Bafta Award winner William Bartlett, encompasses the breadth of talent across these creative companies.
“Every F1 season is a rollercoaster of excitement, full of ups and downs and twists and turns as the drivers and teams battle it out to come out on top,” explained Bartlett. “What better way to announce the start of this year’s competition than to literally see our main title protagonists race around a ‘rollercoaster inspired’ circuit built from the imagination of the Framestore team. Set on the outskirts of Las Vegas, reminding us of the most exciting new venue to appear on the 2023 calendar, we speed around the track blending the live-action footage with our CG cars and environment.”
The film’s cinematic feel comes from its rich imagery, authentic scenes, and elevated aesthetic, paired with seamless VFX and attention to detail. The goal of the visual was to facilitate and enhance the story while looking and feeling as authentic as possible, with a physical reality and architectural logic to the shapes and structures built.
“To create the previsualization, we utilized Nuke’s 3D system to block out the animation and layout to find the tempo and pace within the piece,” shared FX Supervisor Matthew Thomas. “This allowed us to build and explore the edit set to the amazing backing track. We generated a spherical projected digital matte painting of the Mojave Desert and Las Vegas. This allowed us to move the camera around the track dynamically and creatively.”
One of Framestore’s greatest challenges on the project was the night-time environment and the numerous colorful, animated lights inside the amusement park. The CG team created a system in Houdini so that, intuitively, each lighter could handle all the lights in the scene through a single user interface. The team also used Houdini to create a procedural system that enabled the modification of the F1 track, such as its shape, size, and the objects attached to it.
Pulling everything together is the flaring produced from all the floodlights. Added Thomas, “Using a mixture of Framestore’s in-house Nuke flare system and a bespoke procedural optical lensing tool developed for the project, we were able to make the world feel alive.”
Knowing that cars on 3-dimensional spiraling tracks can be deceptively difficult to animate without the right tools, Framestore’s Rigging team developed a system to have them on paths that conformed to the road surface.
Bartlett concluded, “What a project to direct. The team at Sky Creative was an absolute pleasure to work with, and alongside me, I had the sensational crew of VFX artists at Framestore who effortlessly brought all our ideas to life. Plus, I’m a huge F1 fan - it doesn’t get much better than that!”
Watch: Framestore’s making of Enjoy the Ride:
Source: Framestore
Debbie Diamond Sarto is news editor at Animation World Network.
