Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/3788
4 Post • October 2009 www.postmagazine.com Bits & Pieces L OS ANGELES — BPG (www.bpgadver tising. com) created a spot for the Tennis Channel that promoted the network's 24-hour cov- erage of the 2009 US Open, which took place in New York last month. The network presented 72 hours of exclusive content. The Air spot ran on Tennis Channel, the network's Website, and on cable channels through the conclu- sion of the tournament. In the spot, tennis greats past and present soar across the Manhattan skyline in slow motion, all to Beethoven's "Missa Solemnis" and "Ode to Joy." The Statue of Liber ty even gets caught up in the excitement, setting up for an overhand slam. BPG used 3D photogrammetr y to give still im- ages of New York City — shot by BPG president Steph Sebagg on a Canon 5D camera — the look of live action footage. Photogrammetr y was also used to animate still images of legendar y tennis players Billie Jean King, Jimmy Connors, Andre Agassi and Mar tina Navratilova. In the Billie Jean King sequence, her hair is ani- mated to suggest motion and her arm reaches for a return. Andre Agassi is shown diving for a return, his legs separating as his racquet reaches back. According to BPG design di- rector Vonetta Taylor, Autodesk Maya was used to create the 3D shapes on which the still images were mapped. This technique was also used for the Statue of Liberty sequence. Current players were repre- sented with slow motion footage culled from the USTA's archive. Taylor says the BPG team was for tunate that the USTA opened their vault to the studio, allowing them to sift through hundreds of hours of footage in order to find just the right elements for the Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Venus Williams sequences. The studio used Adobe Photoshop to build and separate the backgrounds, and to create the Statue of Liberty textures. Apple Shake was used for rotoscop- ing. BPG worked with Hollywood's Planet Blue, which handled all of the compositing with its Autodesk Flame system. The final delivery was on HDCAM SR tape. A standard def version was also provided for broadcast on non-HD cable networks. By Marc Loftus Air: BPG used Photoshop, Shake and Flame, and provided 3D photogrammetry to help promote last month's US Open coverage. Right Now What Post readers are experiencing "Since being laid-off at the beginning of the year, I've used the change in my life as an oppor tunity to grow and challenge myself. For inspiration, I've been reading Michael Ovitz's biogra- phy and I just borrowed from the li- brary Magic Johnson's audio book "32 Ways to Be a Champion in Business." — Barry Goch Online Editor/ Smoke Certified Trainer BPG animates Air for US Open DYK? Did You Know... Debayering (aka: Demosaicing) is the process of "developing" pictures from the RAW data of a CMOS sensor. RAW images do not look correct to the eye and need to be processed before use. This process is known as demosaicing. During demosaicing, full RGB values for each pixel are determined using various interpolation algorithms.There is a trade off between the speed and the quality of debayering. Taken from Igor Ridanovic's Website: www.hdhead.com. Creative Monster Productions (www.creative-monster.com) is a new full-service production company — with offices in LA and SF — offering production, VFX and online integra- tion services. The company was founded by VFX supervi- sor/digital artist Grant Anderson and finance vet Bryan Gambogi. Since launching, Creative Monster has completed a three-spot viral campaign for WET (shown), the new game developed by A2M.