LOS ANGELES, November 15th: Rhythm & Hues recently delivered a new commercial for Electronic Arts and Odiorne Wilde Narraway and Partners that promotes the game publisher’s newest title, “NASCAR Thunder 2003.” Notable for its high-concept premise and visually stunning execution, the spot features CGI NASCAR cars zipping around the chariot racetrack of the 1959 epic, “Ben Hur.” Directed by Rhythm & Hues helmer John-Mark Austin, the 30 second spot began airing October 6th, coinciding with NBC’s coverage of the EA 500 NASCAR racing event.

Austin and his close-knit pit crew of seven digital artists braved numerous technical challenges and clearance hurdles from both NASCAR and “Ben Hur” copyright owner Turner Entertainment, while wrangling the Eisenhower-era background plates against the nuances of modern NASCAR racing. In the end, Rhythm & Hues created a photo-realistic look that preserved many of the visual elements from “Ben Hur’s” widescreen 2.76.1 aspect ratio, seamlessly rearranged for broadcast TV.

“We suspect that NASCAR racing standards weren’t at the forefront of [Ben Hur Director] William Wilder’s design ideas,” quipped Austin, who noted that the spot’s racetrack loosely approximates the NASCAR oval at Bristol, Tennessee. “The goal from the outset was to preserve as much of the original material as we could, while we narrowed down the width of the ‘Ben Hur’ dirt track to more closely resemble NASCAR proportions.” Faced with losing important material on the left and right side of the frame, the team laboriously rotoscoped key elements from the scenes and moved them toward center, warped the perspective changes accordingly, then re-assembled the scene at a narrower, television-friendly aspect. Austin noted “That was certainly preferable to just cropping out and losing those details from the shot.”

A number of additional visual effects tricks were employed to establish the illusion of Roman citizens cheering a NASCAR stock car race. “The grandstands were kept in motion by cloning small sections of the crowd from other scenes and duplicating them over large areas, while color-shifting clothing and apparel to minimize obvious replication,” said Austin.

Camera coverage for different angles in the stadium – including the crowd, track and architecture - required a photogrametry process to project selected stills against simple geometric surfaces. “We started with twelve minutes of source material for the 30 second spot,” said Austin, “along with 25 stills from several film sequences to locate the alternate views of the elements we needed.” This enabled Austin’s team to create shots that didn’t exist in the movie, but looked like they did, while limiting the degree of perspective shift from the original material.

Another challenge faced was that the film’s original background plates, scanned at 2K from an inter-positive supplied by Turner, exhibited a lot of asymmetric shake and jitter, which made tracking and stabilization difficult. Stabilizing one part of the image would inevitably lead to greater instability elsewhere, and many elements needed to be hand-tracked into the composites.

The attention paid to finding the right amount of motion blur was just one of many examples that demonstrate the spot’s level of detail. Motion blur of the center island was executed independently for side-view racing shots since the original “Ben Hur” chariot races were staged at 25-30 mph, while NASCAR racers regularly exceed one hundred and eighty mph.

The quality of the game car elements provided by EA helped offset some of the other challenges, according to Austin. “EA provided us with the game cars at the beginning of the project and I have to admit we had a few initial reservations. Typically, game models are too low resolution to be useful in a photorealistic piece, but the cars EA gave us were quite impressive. We pretty much used the geometry as-is for all but our foreground heroes, and even those were based heavily on the EA models. I have to give kudos to EA for providing great material from day one. In the past, this kind of data hand-off really wasn’t really feasible and I think EA’s setting some amazing standards with the quality of their models. Frankly, I can’t wait to play this game.”

Austin says he’s relatively certain that viewers will recognize the piece as a playful nod to a filmic masterpiece, and that the integrity of the original will remain untarnished as a result. Still, he expects a few double takes from his list of production credits. “At least I’ll be able to say we worked on Ben Hur - the NASCAR version.”

Amy Massingale, executive producer of Rhythm & Hues’ Commercial CG production division, singles out Austin’s team as the secret weapon in an arsenal that includes the resources of the studio’s high-profile film division. Their dazzling visual effects and animation are featured in such recent films as “Scooby-Doo,” “The Sum of All Fears” and “Men in Black II,” and the upcoming “Solaris” for Steven Soderbergh.

“John-Marks’s team is our competitive edge when it comes to CG commercial production. While we always have the option to harness the firepower of the larger studio for any of our projects, John-Mark’s unit has the strategic ability to scale to our clients’ diverse needs. Today’s market demands that we provide nimble, yet equally creative solutions,” concludes Massingale.