Real Madrid is no stranger when it comes to signing football legends. Zidane, Beckham, Casillas, Ronaldo; they’ve all worn the legendary white kit. TBWA asked us to produce a motion piece that would promote both Adidas' brand new Real Madrid kit for 2019-2020 as well as the club's recently acquired star players. For the upcoming season, Real Madrid is returning to its iconic white and gold colours, with its player names featured in glorious gold lettering. 

 

Concept

 

The piece was driven by the desire to build tension in anticipation of the moment when the new star signing - in this case, Belgian forward Eden Hazard - is revealed. Hence, the beginning seconds focus closely on the small details of each letter in the player’s name as they are progressively molded into solid gold. In the final seconds, the mold fills up, the gold hardens, and the camera moves out to reveal the star player’s name printed on Real Madrid’s legendary white shirt.

 

Process

 

For this project, we had the opportunity to experiment with fluid simulations to create streams of liquid gold that form the letters of the various player names. We collaborated with Houdini artist Tim van Helsdingen in order to produce realistic simulations emulating gold in its molten state. We incorporated his simulations into our main 3D tool, Cinema 4D, in order to take advantage of a larger range of modeling and animation options. Using C4D in conjunction with OctaneRender’s shader system, we then constructed a gold material that we applied to fluid animations.