Archive for category I Design Your Eyes

In February, members of the Zoic team were invited to attend the NASCAR Auto Club 500, part of the Sprint Cup Series, at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California. Zoic Studios has worked on a number of commercial spots for ESPN and NASCAR, and the trip was a way for the clients to thank the Zoic team.

The Zoic pros who attended the race included: CG Supervisor Michael Cliett, Senior Editor Dmitri Gueer, Commercial Creative Director Leslie Ekker, Executive Producer Steve Schofield, Producer Neil Ingram, and Lead 3D Artist Dave Funston.

Here’s a quick “sizzle” reel from the trip:

Cliett discussed his experiences from the trip, and shared his collection of photos.

“[The other] guys got race passes through Coke Zero,” Cliett says, “and I went as a guest of [advertising agency] Wieden+Kennedy. We did work for them on two ESPN NASCAR spots; ‘Dominoes,’ which has been all over the airwaves, and ‘Variables,’ which airs in April. They were gracious enough to give me a ‘Hot Pass’ which enabled me unlimited access to the pits and the drivers before, during and after the race.

“I took a lot of photo reference for future NASCAR spots. Every year we seem to produce one or two commercials with NASCAR as the primary theme, so it’s good to have future reference for that. And just witnessing the race, and the demographics of the racetrack itself, is going to help us in future production.

“One thing I really enjoyed about the race was being in the pits, being around the cars and the drivers. The drivers were spending time with their families and kids, and they went through these rituals. Some were doing calisthenics, some were praying. It was fascinating to see drivers like Jeff Gordon and Mark Martin, these guys who are NASCAR legends, to be up close and personal with these guys. Really seeing them on a human level, and not just as race car drivers, was pretty cool.

From left: Zoic’s Steve Schofield, Leslie Ekker and Michael Cliett.

“The race was very exciting. The pit crews can change all four tires, fill the car with gas, and tighten the suspension, all this stuff, in 15 seconds or less, before getting the car out. Most of them are around 11-12 seconds – I timed a couple.

“The race was so loud – it was like being in the loudest nightclub you’ve ever been to, and standing directly next to one of the speakers. If you were standing two feet away from me and I was screaming at the top of my lungs, you wouldn’t have been able to hear me. It was very loud in the pits when they would roll in and the cars were coming by, but Les and the guys up in the stands said it was loud up there too — you had to scream to be heard. If you didn’t have ear plugs, you were going to have hearing damage. It was like 42 jet planes flying at full afterburner. At one point I even walked to the middle of the infield, the furthest away from the track. This track is two miles in diameter, so if you’re in the middle, you’re at least a half mile away from any car, and it was still loud there. You had to yell to be heard.

“I have a professional interest in NASCAR; but I’m also originally from Texas, so I’m a Southern guy at heart. My parents live in Tennessee right now; lots of their friends are into NASCAR, so they get very excited when they hear I’m working on a NASCAR spot. Apparently a lot of my parents’ friends, when they told them I got to go to the pits and be there during a NASCAR race, were very excited and envious. I’m a casual NASCAR fan – but I’m a car guy, a huge car nut, so anything related to cars, I’m interested in.

“I met Kyle Busch. He was the star of our second NASCAR spot, ‘Variables.’ He remembered [Zoic co-founder] Loni Peristere from Florida, where the spot was shot last November. He was about to get in his car, so we couldn’t talk too much, but I wished him good luck in the race. He said ‘thank you’ and to tell everyone at Zoic ‘hello.’

“I also met Kasey Kahne. We did a Budweiser commercial with him in January 2009. We originally shot that commercial with four live-action cars and no people in the stands, at Fontana. We ended up populating the race with all-CG cars, making it look like there was a real-live race going on; and then doing crowd replacement in the stands. That was a real fun spot. So I said ‘hi’ to Kasey, and he remembered us from Budweiser. Unfortunately, he spun out early on in the race, and did some damage to his oil pan. He came into the pits – I have pictures of his car getting worked on. He did finish the race, but I think he was last place.”

See Michael Cliett’s gallery of photos from the 2010 NASCAR Auto Club 500 below.

More info: Auto Club Speedway; Zoic Studios at the NASCAR Auto Club 500 photo set on Flickr; “Zoic Brings Photo-real CG to Broadcast TV with ESPN NASCAR ‘Dominoes’” on IDYE.