Hasta La Motion!

Samsung continues the Galaxy 11/Aliens football campaign with “Training”, a VFX-heavy commercial. The aliens have finally come to Earth, but they haven’t come in peace. They’ve come with one goal in mind: to defeat Earth’s greatest strikers in a winner-takes-all battle of football skill that will decide the fate of the world. Samsung introduced the Galaxy 11 team in 2013: Lionel Messi (captain), Alexander Kerzhakov, Lee Chung-Yong, Rooney, Mario Götze, Iker Casillas, Iker Casillas, Wu Lei, Radamel Falcao, Victor Moses, Oscar, Landon Donovan and Ronaldo. The “Training” film brings the team to a futuristic training facility where they prepare for battle using Samsung Galaxy technology along with holographic creations and hovering robot opponents. The film ends with an alien overlord looking down upon earth from his mothership, plotting the overthrow of humanity.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YW1yZPflIXY

The spot was shot over a period of two months in London, Barcelona, Madrid, Munich, Prague and Manchester, with meticulous attention to story and choreography. “Because of the athlete’s varying schedules we had to shoot each player separately,” comments director Laurent Ledru. “It was very important that each performance felt authentic to that athlete yet interacted seamlessly with the others.” Ledru first built a large set to plan the shoot segments and then filmed the body doubles performing the precise choreography. After building a rough edit, and extracting the shots to recreate, Ledru then met the football stars in different locales around the world, where they would execute the acrobatic stunts and moves for the real shot. “Each player was given instructions and guidance but we needed to capture them acting as naturally as possible in front of the green screen despite the CG elements that were to come later,” notes Ledru. One after another, the story came to life, the mood and look of each shot seamlessly integrated.

Training to play football against aliens takes a nontraditional approach. Psyop researched the strengths of each player, working with sports choreographer Andy Ansah to blend football stunts with parkour while keeping personal styles intact. The commanding presence of Messi nailing his targets is perfect for the role of team captain, and for Ronaldo the glory of the arena fits his larger-than-life persona.

Credits

The Training film is part of a campaign developed at Cheil Worldwide, Seoul, by creative director Mookyo Lee, art directors Zonguk Han, Woohyun Son, Sunghoon Min, Narang Park, copywriters Simon Friederg, Adrian Sim, Yongjun Jung, Jeongmi Lee, Yoonjung Lim, producers Minwook Kang, Jung Gun Yoon, chief account director Eunsook Koh, senior account director and strategist Loeun in, account director Taekkyun Yun, Sungho Kim, Banya Kim, account manager Kippeum Ohn, Eunyoung Choi.

Filming was shot by director Laurent Ledru via Smuggler with director of photography Alex Lamarque, line producer Nick Fewtrell, executive producers Brian Carmody and Patrick Milling Smith, managing director UK Fergus Brown, COO/executive producer Lisa Rich, production designers Richard Bridgland and Kevin Phipps, costume designer Matthew Goldman.

VFX were produced at Psyop by director Laurent Pedru, art director Lilit Hayrapetyan, executive producer Luisa Murray head of production Cori Cooperider, producers Hillary Thomas and Morgan MacCuish, assistant producers Jane Lee and Nathan Lueptow, designers Oscar Cafaro, Lilit Hayrapetyan, Adam Kuczek, Ke Swaab, Georgia Tribuiani, Velwyn Yossy, Andrew Park, lead technical director Andy Jones, CG lead, modeller and lighter Cris Fudge, FX team Kiel Gnebba, Victor Grant, Richard Tepavchevich, modellers Anastasios Gionis, Rie Ito, Andrew Lema, Rafael Zabala, Jonathan Iwata, rigging team Sean Kealey, Frank Naranjo, lighting team Stephen DeLalla, Todd Herman, Isaac Irvin, Jonathan Iwata, Aldrich Torres, Andy Jones, Jason Kim, lead 3D animator Bernd Angerer, 3D animators Christopher Bishop, Joshua Cordes, Jean-Dominique Fievet and Chris Smith, 2D supervisor Lane Jolly, Kim Stevenson, Diego Vazquez, 2D animator Claudia Yi Leon, storyboard artists Vinny Dellay, Rusty Dumas, Morgan Schweitzer, matte painters Julien Brami, Gizem Ersavas, Andrew Park, compositors Sean Coonce, Sven Dreesbach, Julie Jang, Lane Jolly, Don Kim, Donna Lanasa, Matt Lavoy, Ryan Raith, Maciek Sokalski, Greg VanZyl, Ned Wilson, Flame artist Tom Leckie, Elad Offer, Sam Shiflett, Kim Stevenson, Jodi Tyne, Diego Vazquez, Thibault Debaveye, pipeline developers Alon Gibli, Fabio Piparo, Andy Jones, John Cooper.

Editors were Stephen Berger and Isaac Chen at Cut + Run with assistant editors Ben Corfield, Kendra Juul, executive producer Carr Schilling, managing director Michelle Eskin and producer Remy Foxx.

Colorist was Mark Gethin at MPC.

Sound and music were produced at EchoLab, with music by composer Gavin Little.