Roger: NBA on Direct TV

Posted by Justin Cone

It’s projects like this new NBA on Direct TV spot that make Roger one of my favorite hot, young studios.

roger.jpg

Normally, I’m not a big fan of sports promos. (Maybe this has something to do with me not being a big fan of sports.) But this piece has excellent flow with some dynamite 3D and clever transitions. The camera work in particular is really nice. Integrating live action with a virtual camera is tricky business, but the Roger team nailed it.

Thanks to Chris for the tip!

About the author

Justin Cone

/ justincone.com
Together with Carlos El Asmar, Justin co-founded Motionographer, F5 and The Motion Awards. He currently lives in Austin, Texas with is wife, son and fluffball of a dog. Before taking on Motionographer full-time, Justin worked in various capacities at Psyop, NBC-Universal, Apple, Adobe and SCAD.
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22 Comments

jjjohnstone

I’m not usually one to accuse someone of creating projects “inspired” by someone else or talk about who did what first, but the 3D in this spot really feels “inspired” by onesize’s Nike Air spot. https://www.onesize.nl/mov/NIKE_AIR_T90.mov I think its a great spot and its really well made, but…

rothermel

the similarities were discussed at mograph.net… i will just copy a link for what i had to say over there.

https://mograph.net/board/index.php?showtopic=10012&pid=92770&mode=threaded&show=&st=&#entry92770

lavaman

Hi, my name is Joel Lava, and my original reaction to this spot was that it looked cool. To a certain extent, design is based on ripping others off, which is why 2001-2003 was the age of vector, and 2003-2005 was the age of paint splats. In fact, the coolness of this spot isn’t the boards, but taking the footage into a cg world, which one might say we are in the age of 3D tracking (2005-2007).
That said, I still do feel a little ripped off, but whatcha gonna do? We had more refined board flow thanks to Chris Gwynne in maya (though half was still c4d), so we had a different look. And the high-end Chauncey Billups spot did board animation before we did.
At the end of the day, i’m just glad I got my idea out there first, b/c it’s a logical creative idea which was gonna happen soon enough.

rothermel

joel, i would like to see you in a cage match, with roger, onesize and chauncey billups… rotoscope to the death!

Supernova

Wow, how much more obvious can it get?
Do these designers actually think when they create things?
Seems like nowadays it’s all about digging up other people’s & studios stuff.

stray

yeah whats wrong with digging other people stuffs and doing it?

realityplay

Wow, I’m glad I’m not the only one who feels this way. I just finished watching this spot and the one thing that came to mind was “One Size”. What a rip off! But hey that’s nothing new now a days is it? It seems like most everything you see today is just a copy of someone elses work who probably copied someone else and so on. It’s like someone who says they can draw a picture when really they are tracing. Great… I have felt this way for many years and the sad part is that people will always copy each other because it’s just too easy and what people want. Take a minute, breathe and come up with an orginal thought, or alteast HALF ORGINAL! As far as the person who said, and I quote “whats wrong with digging other people stuffs and doing it? I think you said it all… Well congratulations Roger on being able to trace.

brandj

BNS did some exploding boards from a basketball court spots for an And1 spot back in 2004. Someone dig it up. Call it a meme. Move on.

stray

yeah yeah..big deal.

Why dont the ‘original’ creators patent the ‘style’
muahahah

Supernova

So instead of having a try to come up with at least 30% of your original style you rather just compliment yourself on being stupid and ripping off blatantly?

If everyone would do that we’d be nowhere. Sometimes i don’t get it how lethargic some designers/ creatives are in the process.

stray

supernova, show us some of your works!

would be delighted to critique its originality.if any.

THA_DON

they could have changed the colors a little bit… dont you think.

but look folks, maybe the client may have said, please do something that looks EXACTLY like this: then showed them Joel Lava’s peice…. I think thats what may have happened, at least thats the only logical explanation……

remember, remember children, its one thing to be inspired by, even “borrow” from, but its another to plain copy-cat something….

oh, and stray… learn to wipe properly….

stray

tha_don,ol jaded grandpa,

teach me how to wipe properly? i’ll pay for yr dentures.

Sir Monkey

As I mentioned on Mograph, this is straight up a RIP and yes, it is a big deal!

If anything, it’s just sad to see that a company like that takes such an easy way out on a big project like that. Usually as a new company, you give it everything you got to get your name on the map, think new, think creative, you certainly do not go ripping ideas off or it’s going to set the standard as, “hi, we are roger, we are the ones that rip shit off and can’t find our own creative solutions”. Very sad.

That company new dam well what they were doing when they pitched those boards. Hopefully they come back with something good and original next time.

jbiggles

Sir Monkey your kinda like a douchebag, little bit. The spot looks great.

THA_DON

stray, i want to be just like you when i grow up.

THA_DON

still, could have changed the colors a little bit dont you think…

Sir Monkey

jbiggles, did you just happen to skip the previous 14 messages basically saying the same thing? OK, I see what you are saying, because there are 14 other negative comments, we didn’t need to see a 15th comment. Gotcha, I’m sorry.

BTW, I said it was a great spot on Mograph about two weeks ago. Do I need to say it again Master jbiggles?

kube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ff_dVU1UPak

One shouldn’t take things so serious, enjoy each piece for what it is. No one is original.

THA_DON

wow kube, that has to be the most original saying i have heard.. come up with that yourself?

they could have changed the colors just a little bit at least dont you think…..

stray

be like me? cool. but i think u need to loosen up way more.

dont be so cranky at such a early age.it’ll be worse when u get older.

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