In February, Zoic’s “Dominoes” spot for the NASCAR Nationwide Series broke new ground in computer graphics for television. (Read the story here.) Now the Culver City, California-based studio has produced the second spot in the series, which retains the visual style of “Dominoes” but is quite different in story and tone.

The new spot, entitled “Variables,” is the story of the things the drivers and pit crew can’t plan for during a race, according to Zoic executive creative director Loni Peristere, “and how those variables affect the outcome of the race – who’s going to win, who’s going to lose.”

Watch “Variables” on ZoicStudios.com

The origins of “Variables” go back to the beginnings of the campaign. “The Nationwide campaign is a series of commercials that were originally pitched and presented by [New York-based advertising agency] Wieden+Kennedy,” Peristere says, “that we at Zoic partnered on for the duration of the campaign. We started in the earlier part of November last year, with [Wieden+Kennedy producer] Dan Blaney, [art director] Cyrus Coulter, [writer] Luke Evans, and Heather Larimer, under the auspices of Stuart Jennings, our creative director from ESPN.”

“The good thing about Wieden+Kennedy is that the producer is looked at as a ‘third creative,’” says Blaney. “I have that point of view throughout the process. That’s important to me.”

“We worked with the Wieden+Kennedy team to come up with the look, tone and feel for not only the commercials but for the entire campaign,” Peristere says. “If you see the Nationwide footage on ESPN right now, you’ll see our style, the stark black & white with blue highlights, used throughout the promotional material in the campaign. We worked originally with [Zoic creative director] Derich Wittliff and Darrin Isono to create keyframes that became the foundation of the look, feel and tone of the entire campaign.”

Footage of the racers for both spots was shot on location in Florida at the close of last year’s Nationwide Series. “We picked up the actors the day after their very last race of the season,” Peristere says. “And Kyle Busch, the star of ‘Variables,’ had just won the championship. We got to play with him a little bit, and his cohorts, on the shoot day, which was really fun because they were coming off of a long night of revelry.

“A big part of the realism for the drivers’ performances was rooted in my direction on set, where we were walking these guys through the variations of their performances. We had them run through directions like, what do you say to your driver? How do you feel when someone is spinning out right in front of you? When your car is not functioning? How do you react? We went through a series of facial expressions, both passive and active in performance, to capture the fixes that we needed for the spot.

“Both Wieden+Kennedy, and Stuart and his entire team at ESPN, were incredibly gracious with their trust. When we got into Editorial, it allowed [Zoic senior editor] Dmitri Gueer and I to choose the facial expressions we felt would convey the story to the utmost.”

Gueer adds that when it came to choosing the drivers’ performances, “they had to be identical to what the drivers would do on a real racetrack. But the big challenge was that you could take a greenscreen of the driver’s performance, cut it into the offline and go: “This is going to work great!”  Then look at it in the dailies after it’s gone through CG and all of a sudden realize that it no longer works because it is a mapped image that lives in its own environment.

“I really wanted drivers’ performances to work because it is  always about never stopping to want something perfect,” Gueer continues, “so I think I drove our CG guys absolutely bonkers because I kept feeding them non-stop new drivers’ takes to run a test on. In the end I was extremely pleased with how the drivers’ shots worked out. Our CG artists did an amazing job!

I am pretty positive that any NASCAR fan could take a look at the spot now and say ‘that’s totally real, I’m right there with that driver.’”

Peristere points out the differences between the spots. “’Dominoes’ is about an event, this giant crash, and having the wherewithal within the context of a giant 40-car pileup to know how to navigate that destruction.

“‘Variables’ is really about the race; it’s about the nuances of the drivers themselves, and how they react to variables on the track they cannot foresee; and it’s these kinds of qualities that make them great drivers. ‘Variables’ takes place from the white flag to the chequered flag. It’s one lap that we’re examining in great detail.”

“I think the two spots are totally different,” says writer Evans. “‘Dominoes’ has that epic crash in bullet time, everything fades out, and comes back full speed at the end; you have that lull in the middle, that moment where you have to get you bearings. Whereas in ‘Variables’ it’s a storyline from beginning to end. Right away you have to be along for the ride, and follow these details that are happening to get the story.”

Peristere laughs that “Dmitri, our crazy editor, had a lot to construct here; because the storytelling in a 30-second spot, especially in the context of a race, is really hard to track — especially here where it’s not just one event, it’s an entire lap, and you have multiple events. There was a lot of pack in, and Dmitri did a phenomenal job.”

Gueer adds: “From an Editorial standpoint, this particular spot was not easy because you have three drivers, three storylines, and a race that is going on in the background – and everyone wants to win! It’s a lot of story for 27 seconds to tell.

“This spot took a long time to edit and put together because we had to figure out how to tell a credible story, true to the whole NASCAR experience. You start in your mind by shaping the story based on what shots you would use to highlight certain points in the timeline. On top of that you have to have shots that establish the drivers and their identities by what they do on the racetrack, and how they drive or what strategy they use. Plus you have the overall story of everyone else trying to catch up to those drivers and avoid the big tire blow-up. How are you going to do that in such a short period of time, from a storytelling and from an artistic standpoint?

“Working out the timing takes a long time, so does maintaining pacing while telling the story of the three drivers. It was a pretty difficult task. Just like anything else the story has its own arcs, its highs and lows, and all of it had to flow from one cut to another.”

Gueer says that “Variables” was a very “Editorial-driven” spot. “The editor goes to the dailies and makes suggestions and has some creative notes, which is nothing unusual; but I would say that ‘Variables’ consumed me entirely, because everything in this spot is working on a cut-to-cut basis, and certain story points had to be hit for the spot to work, even the placement of the cars and where they are at a particular point in the story. But with great creative direction from Loni, our VFX and CG leads, and our great clients at Wieden+Kennedy, we were able accomplish a spot that I believe we can all be proud of!”

In the wake of the collaboration between Zoic and Wieden+Kennedy on “Dominoes,” a great deal of trust developed between the two teams. “Walking them through the process and working with [Wieden+Kennedy] on the first go-round,” Peristere says, “we set up the parameters and the workflow by which they would understand the second go-round. Honestly it was a very quiet second round of work, where they were partners with us, but not too invasive because they had experienced the process the first time.”

“There was so much work on ‘Dominoes,’” art director Coulter explains, “dialing in everything, the look and feel of it, how the animation plays out; so with ‘Variables’ it was nice, we were able to plug that stuff in and just let the story play out. With ‘Dominoes’ we were down there at Zoic working tirelessly to make everything come together – but with ‘Variables’ we just plugged everything in and it was great.”

Zoic commercial executive producer Erik Press says “the trust continued to grow with Wieden. I think ultimately everybody walked away very happy with the results of some really intense work and some big creative challenges on the CG end. We had a great working relationship with Wieden once again on this. I’m happy that they looked to us to find some creative solutions. We can’t wait to do more work with them.”

“We would all like there to be more,” Peristere says, “ if not on this campaign, certainly with the creative team we work with at Wieden. It was an incredible experience to work with them.”

Blaney says, “We put ‘Dominoes’ on such a pedestal, that our first reaction of ‘Variables’ was positive, but it took us a while to feel really excited about it. But for me, now looking at the finished ‘Variables,’ I can honestly say it may be my preferred spot out of the campaign.

“The client completely loved the it. They were blown away by ‘Dominoes’ — I don’t think anyone expected the end result to be that impressive. They took a leap of faith, especially trying an animation style that’s definitely innovative and new. They put a lot of trust into Loni. It was a very successful campaign for everyone involved.”

“The Nationwide Series is kind of like the ‘minor leagues’ of NASCAR,” Coulter says. “They’re putting a ton of money and effort into their Sprint Cup coverage, and for the Nationwide series there’s just not as big an expectation. So I think it’s really nice we had a come-from-behind win on this, making ‘Dominoes’ and ‘Variables’ so awesome.

Zoic thanks: Michael Cliett, Brian White, Kevin Struckman, Chris Irving, Steve Meyer, Nate Overstrom, Chris Desantis, Chris Jones.

More info: “Zoic Brings Photo-real CG to Broadcast TV with ESPN NASCAR ‘Dominoes’” on IDYE; “Variables” and “Dominoes” on ZoicStudios.com.

To the opening riffs of Metallica’s “Master of Puppets,” two NASCAR drivers jostle for position at the front of the pack. One cuts off the other by the wall, and the rear car speeds up, smashing into the front car. As the front car drifts from the wall, the rear car makes its move, attempting an aggressive pass on the right. But it’s no good – he sideswipes the front car and spins out. He’s slammed by another car and flips high into the air, triggering a massive pile-up. And straight through the smoke and chaos of the pileup – a third driver makes his move and takes the lead. “It’s anybody’s race.”

The 30-second spot for ESPN (see it here), promoting the NASCAR Nationwide series, was created by advertising agency Wieden+Kennedy New York and Culver City, California’s Zoic Studios. The commercial is significant because, despite its unique and stylized black-and-white look, it appears to have been shot in live action. In fact, it’s entirely CG.

Zoic co-founder Loni Peristere, who directed the spot, talks about why the commercial was created digitally, and how Zoic was able to create the illusion of perfect realism.

“The question from Wieden+Kennedy was, ‘we have a project, two scripts, which take place on the track, and would require significant action and stunt work. We’re trying to decide whether we should approach this from a live-action standpoint; or should we approach this from an animation standpoint.”

Wieden+Kennedy insisted the final product be photo-realistic; the agency did not want a commercial that looked like a video game.

But Wieden+Kennedy was insistent that the final product must appear perfectly photo-realistic. Peristere says the agency did not want a commercial that looked like a video game. “It was really important to them that it had the energy, grit and testosterone of the track. They were not interested in making a spot that didn’t have the reality of NASCAR.”

The agency was well aware how far CG realism has recently progressed. “Even in the last 12 months it has come a long way,” Peristere says. “With the advent of motion pictures like Avatar or The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, we are seeing the potential for photo-real characters, photo-real environments, and photo-real action. But could we actually achieve that for a commercial, and could we afford it? What would the timeline be?

“We got boards for both spots, and it became readily apparent why they were even asking this question – they had a 40-car pileup in the middle of the first spot, and a pretty significant crash in the second. Now when you looked at the second spot, you thought ‘well, from a production standpoint you could probably pull that off’; in fact we’d done something similar for Budweiser the year before. But the 40-car pileup featured just an enormous amount of damage to an enormous number of vehicles, which from a production standpoint would be very expensive.

“And the ability to control the lighting and the camera and the art direction would be limited in a live action production. You would be fighting against the sun, making you rush through the shots, allowing you limited control over your color palette. And you would have the expense of wrecking an enormous number of vehicles.”

Peristere discussed the project with other principals at Zoic – fellow co-founder Chris Jones, commercial creative director Leslie Ekker, commercial executive producer Erik Press, and CG supervisor Andy Wilkoff. “We thought it would be fun to rise to the challenge,” Peristere says. “We knew the team we had been building over the last several years had the potential to do incredible photo-realistic work. We’d seen large leaps in the realm of photo-real characters. We came back to Wieden+Kennedy and said ‘yes, yes we can.’”

Deciding to do the spot in CG led to the first question – should the drivers’ faces be represented in the spot? Human characters are the most difficult thing to create realistically in CG. “From a directorial standpoint,” Peristere says, “I felt it was absolutely essential to see the drivers, to understand who they were, and to know what their motivations were so we had a personal connection to the race. I had the ever-present voice of [Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly series creator] Joss Whedon in my head, who says ‘it’s all about the story; it’s all about the people.’

“We enlisted the help of some incredibly talented artists, including Brad Hayes, Brian White, and Michael Cliett.” Hayes and White had worked at Digital Domain on Benjamin Button and more recently on Tron Legacy, and had been a part of the development of a character-based VFX pipeline.

The technique used for “Dominoes” involved projecting the actual NASCAR drivers’ faces onto CG characters, allowing Peristere complete control over movement and lighting while still getting full, photo-realistic facial performances.

“Andy [Wilkoff] and I went to the very last race at Daytona, and after race day we met with the eight stars of our two commercials. We ran them though some technical setups, which involved a three-camera shoot against a greenscreen. I directed them through a series of emotions and actions that related to the story we were telling. We then took those performances back to Zoic, made editorial selects based on those performances, and gave them to Brad and Andy and the smart people to make something cool with.”

Reference photos were used to recreate the track; and the sky was provided by Michael Curran, who produced a series of sky photos for use in video games.

Dmitri Gueer, founder and senior editor of Zoic Editorial, was involved in the “Dominoes” spot from the pre-viz stage through the final product. He describes the editorial process as “non-stop,” and uses the facial performances as an example of Editorial’s involvement at each step.

“The pre-viz had the drivers, but we didn’t see their faces,” Gueer explains. “So the drivers were just a placeholder in the cut. When we later got the driver plates, we started picking the selects and placing them in the cut. Since the pre-viz already existed, you needed to find takes that worked for the placeholders.

“When you have the drivers’ faces mapped in the shots, it becomes apparent when we need to give them a little bit more time, or take a little time from them, because something’s not working out; and once you have a set of almost-final shots, the edit takes on a different spin. You need to pick the sweetest spots in the shots; you need to reestablish the pacing; you need to make sure there’s continuity from shot to shot; and that the edit comes together not just as a story, but also that it gels with the music and is captivating to watch.”

“We had the added complexity of a 40-car pileup,” Peristere says, “which involved extensive damage to CG vehicles, but which had to happen organically. That was hand-developed and designed by Brian White, another Digital Domain veteran with an intimate knowledge of physics and kinetics, who was able to use both animation-by-hand and procedural techniques to bring these cars into collision. You’ll see that every vehicle reacts and behaves just as a real car would as it impacts. When we have our big moment where we t-bone the hero car, you actually see it break where it should break, and that’s because Brian White made it so.”

I was looking to invoke the German Expressionist period, so I wanted these incredibly long shadows, with crushed blacks.

The spot also required an enormous smoke simulation. “Whenever these cars spin they generate tons of smoke. We worked closely with Zoic Vancouver, and a number of technical directors up in that office who specialize in smoke; they did the phenomenal nuclear explosion scene in the forthcoming movie The Crazies, for which they developed a lot of the pipeline for this — which involves Maya fluid dynamics, along with some techniques in RF4 Real Flow — so they could generate authentic smoke elements that gave the illusion and sense of a full-scale car accident on a NASCAR track.

“Kevin Struckman, Mike Rhone, and Trevor Adams all put in an incredible number of hours to make these smoke simulations incredibly spectacular, concluding with the hero car penetrating the giant smoke cloud, creating those beautiful little vortices that you see. That’s something that’s pretty tricky in a fluid simulation, and they were able to do a really nice job with that.”

In order for the spot to come together organically, there was an immense amount of compositing. “We brought in real smoke, spark, and pyro elements to underline the CG elements. Also, every single one of the 27 shots in this 30-second spot had upwards of hundreds of passes– lighting, reflections, highlights, lens flares, vignettes, grain – all of this stuff that had to be added as a secondary layer.”

The spot was rendered in full color, but the end product was always intended to be in a highly-stylized black-and-white. “That was a choice we made with Wieden+Kennedy, to create a style, a more graphic look. For me it was heading towards the films Alfred Hitchcock made in the 40s and 50s, and looking back even further to F.W. Murnau and Sunrise, and Fritz Lang and Metropolis. I was looking to invoke the German Expressionist period, so I wanted these incredibly long shadows, with crushed blacks. You’ll see a low sun – I call that the Ridley Scott sun, because Ridley Scott shoots at the magic hour all the time, and we wanted to put that in every shot. You’ll see these incredibly long film-noir shadows with bright brights, and black blacks.

“Then we wanted to include the branding of Nationwide; so we applied the Nationwide presence as a design element. We had an illustrator, Eytan Zana, who did a phenomenal job setting the tone and palette.” Zana worked with Wieden+Kennedy, and with Derich Wittliff and Darrin Isono of Zoic’s design department, applying the Nationwide Pantone color to the stickers, the cars, and the track.

Peristere says, “I think overall, this black, white and blue we put together in the compositing really lends an original look to this spot that’s unlike anything we’ve seen before.”

Zoic VFX supervisor Steve Meyer handled the final finish, color grading and color treatment. “We wanted to have sort of a Raging Bull kind of look, high contrast black-and-white. So the compositors left things a little bit more on the flat side to give range; and then I took that, got the style Loni [Peristere] was looking for, and added some of those little nuances like the road rumble, the extra shake when something flies by camera, that kind of overall stuff.

“It’s a stylized look that you could attribute to real photography. I’ve been in the business for a bit, and it blows me away when I see it. Wow, that’s frickin’ all CG? It’s a very impressive spot. I was glad to be a part of it, because I think it’s going to have some legs.”

In the end, it was up to editor Gueer to assemble the finished shots into the final product. “It was a non-stop editorial process, from the beginning when Loni was assembling the story, to the time when we had all the final shots on the Flame. One of the things Steve [Meyer] did was add camera shakes to the shots, which made them look much better; but it changes the nature of what you’re seeing, even the slightest shake. You go well, wouldn’t it be better if we cut a few frames from this, or extended it by a few frames? When we had the final shots on the Flame, we literally did editorial on the Flame, making it better and better and tighter and tighter.”

“With this giant team of 40 some-odd people who worked on this spot, it’s certainly one of Zoic’s finest hours,” Peristere says, “and we’re incredibly proud to have put it together.”

People look at this spot and say “where did you guys shoot this?” Well, we didn’t shoot it!

Press is thankful to Wieden+Kennedy for trusting Zoic with the production of such an innovative and risk-taking spot. “They had faith in us and patience with us, and that was really great, because it really took that to produce this spot. It was a great experience on both sides. They gave us a lot of creative freedom, to really bring out the best in us. We pushed ourselves really hard to the level of realism and level of detail.

“I mean this kind of work, this animation, the quality level, is something very new for broadcast,” he says. “The extent to which we have gone to produce this spot in a visual style, in CG animation, has really never been done before. It’s a full 100% photo-real CG spot.

“NASCAR is very concerned about representing their world accurately, which was a big challenge for all of us, both from an agency side and a production side. Down to the decals on the cars, and the physics of the accidents, what would really get damaged and what wouldn’t, where would skid marks be made on the track… So people look at this spot and say ‘where did you guys shoot this?’ Well, we didn’t shoot it!

“The music was Metallica – my understanding is they’ve never licensed their music for broadcast commercials before. That was exciting from the get go — definitely a driving force creatively, no pun intended, the kind of energy that brings to the spot.”

Press says the spot has exceeded everyone’s expectations. “We’ve seen that response all the way around, from the agency, from our colleagues in the advertising world, and from ourselves as well – it’s really some of our best work. We’ve really set the bar anew; there’s a new target for us now, which is fantastic.”

More info: ESPN NASCAR “Dominoes” on Zoic Studios; Wieden+Kennedy.

Updated 2/5/09; new material here and here.