Here we see an England fan who has a stroke of tactical genius after taking a bite of a Mars bar, stopping the game and instructing star footballers in what their next moves should be - resulting in them scoring a winning goal.
The spot is the epitome of every football fans dream - to be the manager of their favourite football team, storming in with new ideas and tactics to win the match. To create this scalable stadium World Cup spot, The Mill 3D team further evolved their crowd and stadium systems to create a more realistic crowd, based on the authentic reactions of a stadium full of fans. At the direction of the brand, the CG characters display the extremities of emotion within a football match; from the calm and concentrated spectator to the ecstatic and loyal team supporter.
Mill Creative Director, Jonathan Westley comments, "We adapted a generic stadium and filled it with our latest incarnation of Massive. These are now rendered with better lighting and better simulation than we have done previously, something that we have been developing over the past 6 months. Many stadium jobs need a full and frantic crowd, with flag waving and tic-a-tape, but Steve Cope and the creatives wanted a more realistic feel, featuring fans that only reacted with the odd bit of gesturing and chanting when there was something to react to. This is why we built the sim to reflect this, with the crowd becoming more animated as the free kick routine progresses, rising up as the ball hits the net. "
Mike Chapman, 3d Artist at The Mill adds "Over the past months we have rebuilt our Massive agents with new models, clothing, and animation from a motion capture shoot. One of the biggest improvements for the crowd has been our capability to export animated crowd into Maya from Massive; this allows us to light and render the crowd in exactly the same way as the CG stadium, which has made 2D's work more streamlined when bedding the crowd into the stadium."
Agency: AMV
Producer: Rebecca Holt
Creative Directors: Jay Philips, Neil Clarke
Production Company: Rattling Stick
Director: Steve Cope
Executive Producer: Stuart Bentham
Editing Company: Stitch
Editor: Phil Curry
Edit Assist: Izzy Curry
VFX & Design: The Mill
VFX Producer: Josh Robinson
Shoot Supervisors: Mike Chapman, Dan Williams
Creative Director: Wes
2D Lead Artist: Wes
3D Lead Artist: Mike Chapman
3D Artists: David Hempstead, Edward Hicks, Charlotte Akehurst