David Perry - Harry Kane x Skechers

HARRY KANE x SKECHERS

Created for Skechers

Creative Director: Dan Wiese

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VFX ART DIRECTION / DESIGN / ANIMATION / COMPOSITING

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Teaming up with Skechers and football royalty Harry Kane (that’s football—aka soccer, for those still living in denial) was an absolute blast and one heck of a learning curve. I’ve dabbled in CG crowds before, but always with the safety of a darkly shadowed arena. So when they told me we needed a daytime crowd—plus CG referees, extra players, and a load of scene replacements and set extensions—I had a mild existential crisis. But somehow, through the magic of pixels, panic, and an exceptionally talented team, it all came together into one seriously epic commercial!

THE BREAKDOWN

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Motion Capture Actions

To create a versatile crowd that could be easily adapted to different scenes and actions, I recorded a one-minute motion capture "template" that I performed around 40 times with slight variations. This gave me a solid library of performances to work with. Once in Cinema 4D, I set up a simple Xpresso rig that allowed me to offset the timing of each clip to match specific crowd behaviors—like sitting idle, mild cheering, nervous anticipation, disappointment, or an epic standing cheer. This setup made it incredibly efficient to adjust the entire crowd’s reaction to match the context of any given scene in the edit.