The Mill: Puma “Until Then” (or “Speed Legs”)

“Until Then,” a futuristic spot for Puma with vfx from The Mill, features some stunning choreography—both in terms of the mo-cap and the digital choreography necessary to pull off such lightning quick ball play.

The making-of featurette (below, posted on YouTube) makes it seem like Puma did all the vfx work themselves, maybe in their spare time after designing and manufacturing shoes. It’s pretty cool to see the various aspects of the process, though: face scanning, mo-cap, skinning the characters, compositing—the works.

Even though the spot takes place in 2178, the faces of the players are from famous current-day footballers like Buffon, Anelka, Crouch and Eto. I have no idea who these people are, but I think it’s cool that they look so young 170 years from now. Must be all the nanotechnology.

A funny tangent to this spot is a post entitled “When Does Going Cyborg Make Sense?” from the incredibly entertaining blog Delicious Ghost.

Client: PUMA
Title: Until Then
Agency: Robert/Boisen & Like-minded
Director: Nicolai Fuglsig
Production: Nobody
Creative Director: Michael Robert
Art Director: Jannik Davidsen
Copywriter: Peter Metcalfe
SFX / Animation: The Mill
Sound design: Wave London

Big thanks to Harm van Zon over at Onesize for finding this spot and tracking down details!