Dizzy Feet PSA

HiT Entertainment and the Dizzy Feet Foundation partnered with Figaro Media to produce several public service announcements to raise awareness about the health benefits of dancing.

On short notice Figaro coordinated and produced a shoot in Hollywood with Nigel and Adam from “So You Think You Can Dance” and Carrie Anne from “Dancing With The Stars” at Source Film Studios.  The creative brief called for compositing the live action actors into the 3D world of Angelina Ballerina while they interacted with the virtual characters Alice and Angelina.

Several key tools were used to make these commercials really sell the fact that real people were interacting with 3D animated mice.  We shot the live action green screen footage on a RED MX with super speed primes, allowing great flexibility because of the 4k resolution.  We also used an AJA IoHD and Conduit Live to pull a live test key with approximate background plates so that we could match lighting and really get the actors to look like they belonged in the world of Angelina Ballerina.

The entire shoot had a very compressed time line; scripts storyboards were literally finalized hours before shooting, we only had a couple of hours with the talent and the crew, gear and studio were booked two days prior to filming (providing plenty of interesting war stories).  On top of it all the production required coordination on a global level – approvals were needed from the client in London, New York and Dallas, storyboards were being created in Singapore and we were on the west coast trying to make sure things were being shot the way they needed to be.

Everything went down without a hitch and the end product was a very successful PSA campaign that was a lot of fun.  Nigel, Adam and Carrie Ann all had a blast and the good times really came across in the finished pieces.

Here’s the finished Carrie Ann PSA and here’s the finished Nigel and Adam PSA.