Pepsi 'Soundcheck' was a huge undertaking by the Mill+ team, with a super condensed schedule that required three of the Mill+ studios, London, New York and Los Angeles to collaboratively work on the spot. 

Stephen Venning, Executive Director of Mill+ explains, "The reason this project succeeded so well was the fantastic collaboration between Mekanism and Mill+ from day one. It was such a pleasure to see the co-directors, creatives, client and producers working as such a tight unit. Everyone knew we had a once in a lifetime project in our hands with a very condensed schedule, which made everyone pull together and produce such an killer spot." 

Co-directors Andrew Proctor and William McGregor both share some onset insights. 

Andrew: "When we first started talking to Kevin and Tommy at Mekanism we knew we had to do this, we knew the script was an amazing idea that was perfect for the epic scale of the Super Bowl halftime show.  We all loved the concept of the giant hands tuning up iconic architecture of New York."  

William: "We were super happy and super excited, it doesn't get any bigger than this, Pepsi at the Super Bowl. It's been such a collaborative approach working with Tommy and Kevin at Mekanism.  It was great to have the opportunity to work so closely with Mekanism to refine and execute the idea with Kevin and Tommy, to get the right mix of CG integrated with live action."

Mekanism, Founder & Executive Creative Director, Tommy Means comments: "We wanted to get the audience absolutely psyched for the show. To have co-directors that understand the VFX and were able to seamlessly weave the VFX and live action into the story together was something that was really important to us."

And Mekanism's Kevin Mulroy, Creative Director concludes: "The idea that we could use New York City's biggest and most iconic landmarks being tuned leads perfectly into the Pepsi Super Bowl halftime show. The Mill was able to bring the creative firepower that we needed with the London, New York and Los Angeles studios all cranking up, so when one office was down, the other office could easily pick it up.

The final phase was to bring all of the elements together in Flame, which was led by The Mill's Flame Artist, Gary Driver and a dedicated team of compositors, whose attention to detail really shone through in the final picture.   

The Mill's colourist James Bamford produced a flawless grade for the final film, bringing out the detail in the architecture and presenting the New York night spots with real cinematic beauty. He explains: "Through talking to the agency and the co-directors we worked on a grade that really brought out the best in the footage, particularly the helicopter footage which had been shot on such a clear night, that it made grading the footage a real pleasure, it was pristine in finish, hence the vistas of NYC look simply stunning."