July 9, 2010

POSTWORKS COMPLETES STEREO3D SPOT FOR ESPN

VIEW THE SPOT IN 2D

In the spot ESPN’s Stan Verrett is taking LA Dodgers outfielder Andre Ethier on a tour of the Sportscenter set. He encourages Ethier to jump behind a studio camera to see how realistic a 3D broadcast can look. Verrett then plays up the 3D effect, pointing a bat at the camera, but standing just a little too close when he decides to take a home run swing.

According to PostWorks chief engineer Corey Stewart, the spot was shot and posted in just 10 days. “We have considerable experience in 3D, with work on several 3D feature films under our belt, but of course not in TV commercials, because this is a brand new area for everyone. ESPN’s ad agency Wieden and Kennedy called us in on the project, which was shot in one day by Pace on the Sportscenter set in Los Angeles. The offline was then carried out by Wieden and Kennedy’s own editors on-site at PostWorks. From there we moved straight into the [Quantel] Pablo.”

The UV lighting and polarizing effects of the LCD panels used on the Sportscenter set made it impossible to get both eyes to match at the shoot stage, Stewart recalls. “That meant considerable matching work was required in post together with the usual color correction and 3D [convergence] work. We also composited the VFX and did the 3D titling too.”

The studio’s Quantel Pablo offers integrated color, effects, titling and compositing tools, helping to deliver an efficient Stereo3D workflow.