Nike – ‘The ball makes us more’

‘The Ball Makes Us More’ celebrates the special relationship between FC Barcelona — the beating heart of the city and a Nike partner since ’98 — and its supporters.

Countless Catalans helped us make the film; some appear on camera while others worked behind the lens and another subset represents Barcelona’s historic contributions to art and architecture.

Directed by Oscar-winning cinematographer Wally Pfister, ‘The Ball Makes Us More’ features some of the biggest names in FC Barcelona history, including Iniesta, Coutinho and Martens, along with 20 extras who are all real supporters from the city.

The grid visual style used to bring the film to life was inspired by the layout of the city, a system that was designed and built in the mid-19th century by urban planner Ildefons Cerdà and remains unique to Barcelona.

I’m very proud to have been a small part of this high-end visual effects commercial for Nike FCB. This project was completed during my time as a runner and was the first project where I was asked to help out in the Glassworks‘ 3D department. I seized this amazing opportunity with both hands and got to work the some amazing artists.

As a 3D generalist I’ve helped out in two major areas. I helped out in retexturing all 3D-scanned characters for crowd creation. This meant fixing any mistakes in scanned textures, but mainly create texture variations of shirts, jeans, etc. Secondly, I was completely responsible for the creation of a high-end CG FC Barcelona football. This was modeled, textured and shaded from scratch. Later this was used in one of the commercial’s shots and for a high res posted.

This was an amazing opportunity as it was my first experience to work in a high-level team of such talented artists. I’ve learned a lot and am happy to take this to next projects.