Series director Mike Christie asked for an original sequence that reflected urban spaces and football. It had to look unlike anything anyone had seen before.
"The titles brief was tricky,” he explained. “The series is effectively a talent show, but it's very real, street and the other end of the scale from Football Icon or X Factor. We wanted something high end and dynamic but cool and definitely not glossy. Oh, and then throw into the mix the country's most famous footballer and his sponsor, Coke Zero!"
Designed and directed by Andy Godden and Dal Bhatia the final sequence consisted of clever compositing and realistic 3D animation.
A live action shoot of contestants was filmed in HD against chromakey in Manchester.
All contestants were heavily rehearsed practising their moves without a football which was added later in post-production.
Footage of Wayne Rooney was shot separately on location. Hi-Def background plates were also filmed around Manchester.
Post-production
Post-production was carried out in-house at Ingredient. Stills were taken on the shoot and these were used as Image-Based Lighting in Maya to get a realistic look for the ball itself.
Rough animation tests were made in After Effects which formed the basis of the 3D ball's animation.
The Keylight plug-in was used to matte out the footage of footballers and these image sequences were post-processed in Photoshop Extended to achieve the "Graffiti" look.
Finally all the compositing and grading was done in After Effects and rendered out to HD-size sequences.
Client: Plum Pictures
Design and direction: Andy Godden and Dal Bhatia
Post Production: Ingredient
After Effects and Maya: Matt Ingram
Director of Photography: Chris Burton
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