Fox Sports Designs’ in-house team partnered up with VFX heavyweights, The Mill, to create a very surreal day at the
beach for some of baseball’s biggest superstars. With the All-Star game coming to Southern California this year it seemed
like a natural to incorporate one of Californias’ most iconic features…the beach.

Fox Sports VP Bill Battin managed to wrangle the cooperation of Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Tim Lincecum, Ichiro Suzuki,
Ryan Howard and many other MLB stars to appear in the spot. Then we traveled from stadium to stadium armed with our
cameras, our green screen, and loads of sand. Shooting the players was just the beginning, as our production team then
headed back to sunny LA for 2 days of location shooting on the beach.

The Mill’s CG Team, led by Jamie O’Hara, developed several CG sand setups to cover the range of shots used in the edit.
“The team at The Mill was so exceptional”… said spot director Robert Gottlieb, “The quality of their work was amazing, and
the experience of working with them was as smooth and as positive as any collaboration we’ve ever had”.

One of the key sand effects was the “vortex reveal.” The Mill’s CG team tracked the shots and match moved a CG character,
which perfectly mimicked the players’ motion to give the CG particles something to collide with when simulated.

The Mill’s Lead Flame Artist, Giles Cheetham, assembled the different rendered CG sand layers and combined them with
live action sand elements and live action plates. The Mill also utilized a Lidar Laser scanner to survey the exterior of Anaheim
stadium, which was then textured, rendered, and combined with CG sand to create the key stadium reveal shots.

Legendary Cinematographer Daniel Pearl lensed the spot using a combination of 35mm film and Canon 5D SLR footage.
“The blend of the 35mm and 5D footage was really seamless” said Blake Danforth, Fox Sports Creative Director. The final
spot features a boozy version of the 60’s classic “California Sun” that perfectly drives home the fun in the sun freewheeling
vibe of the spot.

CREDITS

Title: “Sand”
Client: Fox Sports Marketing
Product: MLB All-Star Game on Fox

Agency: Fox Sports Design

CMO – Eric Markgraf
SVP/Group Creative Director – Robert Gottlieb
VP On-Air Promotions – Bill Battin
Creative Director – Blake Danforth
Producer – Vincent D’Angelo
Production Manager – Rita Mazmanian

Live Action Shoot

Director – Robert Gottlieb
DP – Daniel Pearl
Producer – Marsha Hunt
Producer – Lissa Weiss
Production Design – Greg Blair
5D additional camera – Blake Danforth
5D additional camera – Guillermo Lecuona
5D additional camera – Eric Laudadio

The Mill

VFX Producer – Asher Edwards
Lead Flame – Giles Cheetham

Flame Assist – Andy Bates, Gavin Camp
Nuke Compositors – Becky Porter, Nitant Karnik

Nuke Assist – Nick Taylor

Lead CG – Jamie O’Hara

CG Artists – Josh Hatton, Sam Kao, Dan Marum, Adam Carroll, James Going
CG Previz – The House of Curves / Andrew Daffy

Fox Sports Design

Editor – Kirk Smith
Flame Compositing & Design – Kevin Prendiville, Philip Ineno
Sound Design – Mic Brooling
Design Frames – Christian Decastro, Kevin Prendiville

Music – “California Sun” by The Dictators