As the commercial’s title suggests, Gasket created a high-energy, action-packed, V8-powered spot that utilizes dream sequences to encapsulate the thrill of that signature moment when winners scratch off that final symbol and victory is in their hands. Called on by SKAR partner/VP of Creative Strategy Mark Carpenter, Gasket was asked to not only entice viewers to lay down their hard-earned cash for a chance to win it all: but also to raise visibility; and get people thinking and talking about “Trucks & Bucks.”

According to Carpenter, he had admired Gasket’s work for some time, but needed just the right project for their talent. “When this Nebraska Lottery spot came along, I knew it was a perfect fit.” However, as Carpenter points out, because the client was a government agency, Gasket was among a small hand-selected group of companies that had to pitch for the project. It was Gasket’s approach that pushed them to the front of the line. “We were very impressed with the extensive questions Gasket asked us,” details Carpenter. “They were very thorough about the brand and our plans for this spot and beyond. They came back with new ideas and helped to ‘plus’ our boards.” 
  

 
Gasket partnered closely with the live-action production company, The Great Plains Motion Picture Company. The creation of the spot consisted of a live-action film shoot on location at a convenient store. Prior to production, Gasket created a full-motion, 3D animatic, including the shooting boards and camera direction. On-set to supervise the shoot, as well as capture visual effects reference plates and HDRs on-site, Gasket then took the footage and the tracking data obtained from the shoot, and used 3D so0ware to place and animate a toy Ford F-150 truck in miniature scale throughout the store. In the spot, the truck interacts with other real-life objects from the store itself while careening about on various shelves and displays. Working together, the Great Planes and Gasket teams completed 22 shots in just 12 hours.
 
For Gasket, led by Creative Director Greg Shultz and Executive Producer Tammy Kimbler Weber, this is just the right kind of visual effects project that their team loves to undertake. “Although it was a wild ride, up against a very aggressive timeline,” concludes Shultz,” it was our ability to utilize heavy pre-visualization that made this spot and its schedule possible. We like to think we can execute projects in lightning speed, but this spot for Nebraska Lottery made us prove it!”
 

 

 

 

 
Many of the interactive sections were designed and created entirely at Gasket, post-shoot, and tracked into the scenes.  These included the "Forest Fresh" tree air freshener shot, "Jalepeño Dog" hotdog background (but the hotdogs are real!), and the "Marshmallowphant" gumball avalanche. See if you can find them within the spot. (Tiger Sauce is probably the hardest one to find.)
 

 
On the left is the original shoot footage.  On the right is the final product. 
 

 
Sample of images and setups used for shoot board references.
 

 
Staged at a local convenience store with a model truck, we shot references for perspective, depth of field, lighting and scale. 
 

 
Behind the scenes stills from the shoot. Greg gets the thumbs up from SKAR client, Mark Carpenter.

The new online piece for Payless.com focuses on today’s Every Woman, who — thanks to the Champion Shoes from Payless — can integrate exercise into her daily activities. Whether it’s doing time on a treadmill, running errands on the city streets, or buying flowers at a local market; these are all opportunities that can “give your walk a workout.”
 

 
Martin/Williams’ CD David Richardson asked Gasket to create a piece that tied in visually to the bright colors of the Champion Fitness brand palette, but still had a warm, human element. The design also had to be somewhat restrained so the talent would really pop.
 


 
Gasket designers/animators infused a keen sense of fun and humanity into the heightened reality of the energy-packed spot with a few special, “a-ha” moments like: a bouquet of flowers exploding into a group of ascending butterflies and a beautifully re-created sunset.
 

“Our detailed preparation is what really made this project so successful,” comments Gasket Creative Director Greg Shultz. “We used pre-visualization as a creative communications tool to let the agency and the clients know exactly what we had planned, so there would be no surprises once we got to the shoot.”
 

 
The talent, Brazilian model-actress Amanda Salvato, featured in the Payless Champion Fitness print campaign, was flown from New York to Minneapolis (just slightly delayed by a mid-winter blizzard…) for the 12-hour shoot. Shot walking on a treadmill in front of green-screen, the Gasket team was able to complete 17 shots in just one day — a very aggressive timeline for a fashion client.
   

 
“The clients liked the results so much for this interactive, online piece, they decided to create multiple broadcast spots as well,” adds Gasket Executive Producer Tammy Kimbler Weber. 

In the end, Gasket created the signature, 50-second, online piece for Payless.com, as well as two 15-second spots and a 10-second spot for broadcast, airing this summer nation-wide.
 

 

 
Here's the content on the Payless website.

These are stills from the final piece. Combined with some interesting angles and fluid and funny movements from our Minnie and Paul, just the right amount of humor was added to the piece.

Gasket shot the plates for the commercial at Target Field back in November 2009 .  It was a lovely fall day, right before our first snow.  Our challenge was to take this scene and make it a bright spring day, ripe for an outdoor baseball game at the new stadium.  The field was still under construction.  Signage, flags and advertising were not yet in place. These two shots illustrate our start point and our end point with this project. We shot high resolution stills of the field that we stitched together in 3D and effected in Flame.  Our retouched field was also used in print ads and appears on the tickets for this season.

Since the sign is real, we needed to recreate it so that Minnie and Paul could come to life. Then we erased the sign from all of our footage. A 3D model of the sign gave us the most versatility, allowing us to choose dramatic camera angles. The above images represent a rendered and wire frame of the our 3D sign without the characters in place.

 
Minnie and Paul have evolved a bit over the years, and it was a privilege to work with their likenesses for this project. The first logo on the left appeared in 1961.  
 

Here's the before-and-after of the sign. The top image is from the photo shoot and the image beneath it is our rebuilt 3D sign from the final spot.

For the shoot itself, we felt privileged to be allowed onto the glorious new field to get the best possible shots for the commercial.
  

We originally planned to film more than half of the spot with real clay. However, the big globe pullout turned out so nice in 3D, that we decided to do most everything in 3D. Capturing the subtlety of finger prints and random cracks on the clay was key making it look authentic. The hero of our spot, the bunny, wasn't even in the approved boards, but we decided that a little humor would help this piece create more interest and a joy to watch. We rendered on '3's (each frame holds for 3 frames) to complete the stop motion, claymation feel. We kept the spot simple and clean to complement the real Best Buy Green Gift Card. We all had great fun creating this spot, and we think it shows!
   

 
Early boards from the concepting phase with Best Buy Yellow Tag in house production group.

Style frames from the design phase.

01/01/09 - Documentary house Rikshaw Films partnered with Gasket Studios to design a contemporary motion graphics package for the nonprofit environmental program Brower Youth Awards 2008. The package encapsulates six short documentaries profiling the winners and was featured at their annual event in San Francisco, California.  In 2009 they'll air the docs on the PBS television show "Natural Heroes: The Brower Youth Awards" and as interstitial profiles on the Sundance Channel.

11/15/08 - Directors Joel Weber and Dominic Howes of Rikshaw Films wanted a modern feel that represented the new generation of environmental activists who embrace technology, business and social networking at all levels. Gasket explored the mission of each award winner–from preserving habitat to profitable alternative energy to sustainable heating–and wove the themes into the animation.  The result is an iconic, kinetic and hopeful design with a vision for the future.

The Brower Youth Awards were established in 2000 to honor founder and legendary environmental activist, David R. Brower and to call forth a new generation of bold young environmental leaders.  Since its inception, BYA has recognized 55 exceptional new leaders.  The 2008 awards honored six young people for their outstanding activism and achievements in the fields of environmental and social justice advocacy.  Visit their website.

 
Original storyboards for the graphics package.  We stayed exceptionally true to the boards.