Concrete Post Produces Red Bee Media's London Grand Prix Athletics Promo For BBC Sports

Full post production from graphic design, compositing, grading, visual effects to stunning sound design has just completed by Concrete for a high profile promotion for media branding expert Red Bee Media.
The promotion for BBC Sport's live coverage of the London Grand Prix athletics, which takes place in Crystal Palace this month, features the world's number one sprinter Usain Bolt. It was directed by Creative Director James De Zoete and Matt Rhodes and produced by Nicole Coleman at Red Bee Media.
The entire post process was achieved at Concrete from concept design by Matt Rowley in Graphic Design to the compelling visual effects created by David Cox, Senior Visual Effects Artist using SGO Mistika. Award-winning Senior Sound Designer Dino Sofos accomplished seamless outstanding sound design to compliment the visuals with a collection of creatively designed high-end sound effects and audio post production for the project.
Concrete was provided with footage of athlete and world's fastest man, Usain Bolt winning the 100-meter sprint at the Beijing Olympics. Graphic Designer Matt Rowley designed the concept frames as per the brief, working closely with Director at Red Bee Media, Matt Rhodes on the development of the treatment. Concrete's editing team rotoscoped 750 frames of slow motion footage in Smoke and carefully separated Usain from the background. David Cox then worked his magic in Mistika and masterfully composited skies, lighting bolts and explosive effects using stock footage.
David explained: "Once the rotoscoping was done, I had a blank canvas on which to create a storm centred around Usain's performance. I used mutliple skies, which were a combination of real and digital elements to create a backdrop, added by layers of fog to create a sense of environment. This left the main character floating a little, so I created a single track floor that lit up as he ran over it. Lighting bolts, flashes and explosions were all added to build to a crescendo as Usain crosses the line. Each shot was created in a single pass in Mistika, allowing every element to be continuously adjusted."
Dino Sofos literally created the impressive sound design from scratch. Dino's brief was to build a sound bed of thunder and lighting with abstract sounds to enhance the mood of the visuals. Over this bed he designed a sound of a jet engine turbine loading up over the course of the promo. This was highly successful and created the required build-up from the start to the finish line with a mixture of commentary, starter guns and a jet engine noise, contributing to the building of suspense and sense of hysteria caused by one of the world's top athlete's performances.
Dino added the pistol shot sound and over-layered it with lighting strikes to set the tone at the start. As Usain Bolt reached the finishing line, Dino concocted his creative mix with an "explosion" sound effect and layered further attention grabbing, frenzied thunderous noises in order to involve the audience and involve them in the excitement and furore.
He concluded: "There were stunning visual effects of Usain's feet touching the ground that David had created in Mistika which I accentuated audibly with heavy thumping sounds and electrical buzzes to emphasise the rising tension. David used Mistika to turn World Champion 100-meter sprinter Usain into a literal visual "Bolt" of lighting. The combination of striking visual and powerful sound effects gave Usain Bolt a Superman image."
Promotion of the live coverage of the London Grand Prix athletics from Crystal Palace is on air on BBC One, BBC Two and the BBC News Channel.
Further information is available at: www.concretepostproduction.com.
(KMcA/BMcC)