Thursday December 7, 2000

Claymation: How'd They Do That?

So much for the women covering the NFL... time now for the men. A hot new TV ad campaign is helping a certain network out-FOX its sports competition. You've seen the ads, claymation versions of Fox Sunday's sportscasters. They're funny, they're outrageous, but the question is "how'd they do that?"

They're wacky, explosive, and shocking... they are the claymation version of Fox TV's football commentators, Howie Long, Terry Bradshaw, James Brown and Chris Collinsworth. For "Fox NFL Sunday's" new ad campaign, these sports giants were turned into wise-cracking mini mounds of clay. How'd they do that?

Fox recruited Will Vinton Studios, one of the pioneers of claymation art. David Daniels says, "The key to the animation process that we think is so successful here is bringing to life inanimate objects."

The process begins by building a skeleton which will allow the figure to simulate body movement and facial expression. Then, photos are examined in order to create a foam latex puppet resembling each announcer.

So how do these characters come to life? First, there's the recording session. Then, through a process called body referencing, animators film themselves acting out the ad so they can later use that information to animate the scene.

The next step is stop motion animation. To make the action realistic, each figure must be posed 24 times in just one second. That means for a 15 second spot one character is positioned and repositioned an amazing 360 times!

But the key to making these figures really believable is to mimic the each man's individual characteristics. How do they do that?

David Daniels explains, "We look at Howie, Terry, Chris and JB extensively in their gestures. The way their head moves... I think that's the key to characterization."

Put it all together and you got a group of grown men you still act like little boys. But Howie, Terry, Chris and James aren't the only personalities these masters have perfected as dolls. They made our own Leeza Gibbons into a clay doll as well.