Brickyard VFX Creates Box Set for ESPN

Brickyard VFX recently completed visual effects work for ESPN 2's "Afternoon Block" campaign via agency Wong, Doody, Crandall, Wiener and director Robert Boocheck of Oil Factory collective Tomorrow's Brightest Minds. The campaign promotes ESPN 2's new weekday programming block of Dan Le Batard is Highly Questionable, Jim Rome is Burning, and Sportsnation, and features :30 spots "Power Outage," "Delivery," and "Tour Guide." Each spot features live action from the three shows placed in individual blocks and vertically stacked atop each other. Brickyard designed the monolithic triple-decker block, which is situated in an expansive mundane office space. In order to achieve believability, the Brickyard team collaborated with Boocheck on an extensive pre-viz prior to the shoots outlining specific camera angles, lensing and camera placement for each set to ensure the composited 3-block stack achieved the proper perspective. Detailed planning was required because each show was shot in three unique cities, each requiring precise measurements and lighting evaluation to achieve a seamless composite. Brickyard's VFX Supervisor Mandy Sorenson was on set in Los Angeles, Miami and Connecticut to work with Boocheck and the rest of the crew.

The Brickyard team composited all of the live action blocks and CG elements as well as compositing screens and various elements into the set pieces. Brickyard designed and modeled the block exteriors in CG to frame the set pieces as well as augment other graphic elements including the show logos for each live action set. Several additional elements including a fishing rod-powered picnic basket dumbwaiter, water coolers and other office trappings were shot against green screen and integrated into the final spots to solidify authenticity.

Brickyard's toolkit included Maya for creating CG box elements and Flame for all other compositing. All spots are currently airing.