More great work from Daily Planet for the Chicago Blackhawks.

Daily Planet recently completed the 2009 Chicago Blackhawks Hit the Ice in-game video and the folks there were kind enough to answer some questions about the process. Be sure to check out their other great work.

Chicago Blackhawks – 2009 Game Opener from Brad Chmielewski on Vimeo.

Daily Planet ltd. is a Chicago based editing and motion graphics studio. Recent works have included design, visual fx, claymation and cgi for local and national commercial advertising campaigns, broadcast television shows, music videos, web-based viral media campaigns, and brand identity packages.

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The Colorado Eagles hosted the Tampa Bay Lighting versus the Phoenix Coyotes last month and Jeff Lewis was responsible for creating the in-game graphics. Thanks for the contribution. If you’ve created some sports motion graphics, send it our way.

A few nice sports related spots on Blue Sky Agency’s demo reel, but their site is flash so I can’t link to them directly.

New Sports and Entertainment Reel from Blue Sky Agency.

Blue Sky Agency

950 Lowery Blvd. Suite 30
Atlanta, GA 30318
v: 404 876 0202
f: 404 876 0212
www.bluesky-agency.com

Take a look at this article by George Johnson of ESPN, and in particular what he has to say about the Chicago Blackhawks pre-game jumbotron show. I should note that I’m good friends with everyone over there, and contribute to the graphics whenever possible, so its nice to read this.

13. Easily the best pregame JumboTron video package we’ve seen
Reverential yet modern, as current as Kane’s curls and as old-school as a Billy Reay fedora. The Golden Jet, Stan Mikita, Tony O, Mr. Goalie, Keith Magnusson, Pierre Pilote, J.R., Eddie the Eagle, Dipsy-Doodle Denis, Al Secord … what else could a slavish shinny devotee possibly ask for?

http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/playoffs/2009/news?columnist=johnson_george&id=4114044

Rezn8 with 3 March Madness spots this year. Nice simple effects that don’t overshadow the emotion of each play. You wouldn’t wan’t to detract from those closeups and Rezn8 does a great job of making the graphics the main character when they have to be.

Here are a few techniques that work great in these spots and I’ve linked to some tutorials that cover similar topics. Not to say this is the way Rezn8 created these spots, but at least you can play around with ONE way to get it done.

3D text in after effects

Ah the million dollar question. Well the oldest way that I know of is duplicating your layer and moving back -1px in Z-space about 40times and then pre-comping the layers. However Zaxwerks makes a very popluar plugin called 3D invigorator that allows you to manipulate simple 3D shapes, extruded splines and text right in After Effects. John Dickinson of Motionworks just posted his 3d invigorator tutorials to get you started. But I like Chad Perkin’s Shatter trick simple and doesn’t require any plugins.

Reflections

Try Video Copilot’s 3D reflection tutorial. Pretty simple tutorial, even adds a little blur to the reflection.

Compositing and tracking

Another Video Copilot tutorial, HUD (or Heads up Display) covers a similar subject. Except in March Madness video you would track the background (perhaps a chair) or any static element in the scene.

Awesome behind the scenes video of the making of the Chicago Blackhawks opening video. Thanks Brad and Daily Planet for the video.

Another cool one from National Television.

Sidenote, National TV did a great job with their site. If you’re familiar with this blog then you know that I absolutely hate flash websites. Rarely do they follow any of the logic that years of html has dictated and simple things like linking to a “page” gets left out of the coding. So, congrats National Television. For making a flash website thats actually a pleasure to visit and easy to share.

Always great work coming from Brian Gossett. King and Country decided not to use it though.

Garus Booth – Plays of the year from Garus Booth on Vimeo.
Thanks Garus for contributing. Looks great, what did you use? Cinema 4D?