The Briefing Room

Directing/Vis EFX Duo Crafts :30 for Baseball Board Game Launch Using Archival Footage, Live Action, EFX
NEW YORK CITY- Aggressive, Lost Highway’s award-winning directing and visual EFX duo, comprised of Dan Shapiro and Alex Topaller, has just completed a national spot for the Topps Company heralding the debut of Topps Attax, the storied baseball card company’s entry into the multiplayer board game category. Using a dynamic blend of archival Major League Baseball footage, live action and VFX, Aggressive, through WonderGroup, Cincinnati, created an action-packed spot that successfully transmits the excitement of the game in which players assume the role of baseball managers of competing teams. Entitled “Got Mine,” the 30 and :15 spots began airing April 13th, coinciding with the start of the Major League Baseball season.
“We knew we created a special spot and it was imperative to find the right production partner who could work with us to bring the spot to life with as much passion and excitement as we had,” points out Elaine Skeldon, account director at WonderGroup. “Collaborating with Aggressive proved to be the right choice. They “got” the concept right away and proactively looked for ways to optimize each shot with top-notch EFX and a seamless blending of live action and animation.”
In the spot, two boys approach each other, squaring off on either side of a “smoking” neon table. They begin throwing down their cards, and as they do, the major league players suddenly appear as life-size ghostly holographic baseball cards thanks to a combination of stylized archival footage, provided by Major League Baseball, and elaborate visual effects.
“We chose 10-second clips from the archival footage that would drive the animation and visual effects, placing the actors in the midst of realistic baseball action,” explains Shapiro. “For example, in the shots that feature the star baseball players, we extracted the camera moves from the archival footage and used that information to recreate a real baseball camera feel for our effects, as you’d see on ESPN.”
Using a Sony F35 HD camera, Aggressive shot the young actors on blue screen at Cinema World Studios, Brooklyn. Then, at their post facility in Ridgewood, New Jersey, Shapiro and Topaller used Adobe After Effects for compositing, and 3DStudio MAX 2009 for 3D work. In the end, everything, with the exception of the two boys and archival footage, was created in CGI.
“We looked for every opportunity to make the spot as exciting as possible,” emphasizes Topallar. “For instance, even the table is interactive. It lights up and changes colors in reaction to the cards being placed upon it. One of the great things about doing a game commercial is the more fun you’re having, the better.”
Aggressive’s hallmark is their visual wizardry and creative blending of live action, visual effects, animation, and design. Their ability to conceptualize and execute all aspects of production and post under one roof is a beacon to agency producers in today’s cash-strapped, time-constrained economy.
As Topallar points out, “Since the spot never leaves our hands, we are involved in the process from the first words of the treatment to the color correction of the last frame. In essence, all the budget ends up on the screen, no money is wasted along the way.”
“The ability of Aggressive to steward work from beginning through completion combined with cost and time savings is very attractive to our clients,” observes Marc Rosenberg, executive producer for Lost Highway. “Turning the time-honored hobby of baseball card collecting into a board game is a watershed event for Topps and we’re thrilled to be part of that. This spot really captures the competitive team spirit and excitement of a real time baseball game.”

About Aggressive: Dan Shapiro and Alex Topaller take the long view when applying their concept-through-delivery approach to commercials. As evident from their recent Latin Grammy-awarded video Me Enamora, for Colombian rock star Juanes, clients end up with a more cohesive and interesting product with everything is in the same hands.
Aggressive’s contemporary storytelling , live action, and visual effects have produced striking results for a growing list of clients including Animals for Kyocera (Seiter & Miller Advertising), and the Whacked viral for Subway (Source Communications). By being engaged in every stage in the creative process, nothing is left to chance. “We know conceptually how it is all going to fit and technically how to do it,” explains Topaller.
The two men met while attending college in New Jersey and shortly thereafter began collaborating as visual effects artists as Aggressive. Their first projects included corporate branding campaigns for G2/Grey Worldwide. They later branched out into videos and commercials. They directed their first video in 2006.
Lost Highway Films is located at 30 Vandam Street #4A, New York, New York 10013. For more information, call (212) 242-7400 or visit www.losthighwayfilms.com.

Credits
Client Topps Company, Inc., New York, NY
Agency WonderGroup, Cincinnati, OH
VP, Executive CD Cheryl Meininger
Creative Operations Manager Vicki Johnson
Executive Producer Mike Leary
Account Director Elaine Skeldon
Account Executive Meredith Miller
Associate CD Chris Dye
Senior Copywriter Nathan Dye

Production Company Lost Highway, New York, NY
Directors/Visual Effects Aggressive: Dan Shapiro & Alex Topaller
Executive Producer Marc Rosenberg
Producer Nicole Rodan
Production Supervisor Chris Bradford

Editorial Aggressive
Editor Jason Yantz
Music: Panetta Studios, Elmwood Park NJ
Audio Mix: Angelo Panetta, Panetta Studios