ADIDAS SUPERSTAR
''Adidas Superstars make you larger than life!''
''A playful and dynamic animation of a girl in New York featuring Adidas clothing and Superstar shoes.''
The Concept
We wanted to make a fast moving and fun shoe commercial, combining realistic shoes with stylized characters.
The goal that we set for ourselves was to make an animation that was both playful and fun but also felt slick and urban. We wanted to make a dynamic film that would fit the brand and the iconic shoe.
After putting together the initial concept we spent quite a bit of time to create a detailed - so called - ''3D Blocking''. A Blocking is a very rough version of the film made with placeholder 3D models to work out the camera angles, shots, editing, rough animation and general direction.
In short: The blocking works out how the animation is going to work before you start refining any details.
Above and below you can see a comparison between the initial blocking and the final result. We spent quite a bit of time refining the blocking until we were confident about what we put together. That meant that the general direction of the final product deviated very little from the original blocking / concept as you can see in the comparisons.
The character
We wanted the character to be both cool and approachable, very clearly stylized but also grounded. We chose a unusual blue skin tone - because its cool, but also - to very clearly differentiate her from realistically rendered people and stay away from the dreaded uncanny valley that a lot of realistically rendered stylized characters suffer from. To make sure she still felt ''real'' we finetuned the tactile qualities of her skin, hair and clothing materials.
The Backdrop
Our initial plan for our backdrop was to film all the shots in real life and add the character with VFX afterward. But that approach had a couple of downsides: Firstly, it restricted our ability to precisely direct all the shots and camera movements. Secondly the clutter of the backdrops in our initial life action tests started to distract from the character and product - which was problematic for a animation that is as fast and snappy as this one.
So we decided to create our own backdrops: a version of New York - the most iconic city in urban culture. This gave us a lot of control over what the shots would look like. We wanted to find a middle ground between realism and a sort of stylized, somewhat retro backdrop. So it would feel like it could be real but would not clash with, or distract from the the character and product.
Custom Adidas Superstar Graffiti designed by Flok. for the backdrop of the second and third scene.
The Shoe
Of course, the Adidas Superstar is the star of the show and we made sure to recreate the look and feel of it in detail.
Credits
This project was produced by Wilbert van Veldhuizen (Wilb.) and Floris kruger (Flok).
Working together on a cool project like this is always a lot of fun. And we where looking for a project to sink our teeth in together for quite a while already.
We have worked together on lots of projects, and both have experience with basically every aspect of animation/VFX production so the collaboration flowed pretty organically.
That also meant that the art direction and general direction of the film was a team effort.
First we took our time developing the concept for this project together, but
because of time constraints, most of the execution and production of the film - like the general planning, the character, the animation and the backdrops - was done by Wilbert (Wilb.) while Floris (Flok) focused on the details.
Finally the score and sounddesign was composed by Floris (Flok).
Wilb.
Portfolio: wilb.studio
Email: info@wilb.studio
Flok
Portfolio: flok
Email: studiofloriskruger@gmail.com
Inspired by Adidas Superstar.
Rights to logo's, brand and shoes are owned by adidas,
its licensors and/or its content providers.
