Miami-based 2C Creative recently delivered the broadcast promo campaign for this weekend’s Mayweather vs. Pacquiao fight which is airing on pay-per-view via HBO Sports and Showtime Sports.
With the fighters’ time focused heavily on training, 2C had to mobilize quickly, working within a very limited window to devise a shooting plan that would give the event the grandeur and scale it deserves. Brian Eloe served as the project’s director/creative director, while Luis Martinez handled the design and VFX supervision.
“Metaphorically, this spot is about the different paths these two titans have been on throughout their careers, all leading to this inevitable collision,” explained Eloe. “We needed to transport [the boxers] from the greenscreen into an epic, yet believable cinemascape and convey the smoldering tension of a showdown long overdue.”
2C used the motion capture robot MILO to create camera moves enabling them to shoot each boxer separately over green, followed by the background plates in the desert, with all elements lining up precisely in post. The technology also enabled more complex camera movements, which created a very believable parallax when the separate plates were married together. Orbiting the camera around the boxers created a sense of grandeur and heightened the believability of them actually being there, as the sweeping panorama shifted behind them.
Getting buy-in from the fighters, their promoters and then two different networks was crucial. For the executional part, Eloe and Martinez needed to articulate the vision and technology to get all parties excited about the visual potential of this promo campaign before they could actually see it. It also meant having tremendous flexibility, as satisfying the various agendas required shifting nuances on the fly.
