HOT WHEELS SKATE
MATTEL
Hot Wheels has tossed the balanced breakfast out the window—now it’s all about amping up your day with cool stunts and wild accessories inspired by Tony Hawk. The Hot Wheels Skate Tony Hawk Cereal Skate Bowl is part of an entire skate park full of obstacles that serve up a radical combination of fingerboarding action and punk illustration. Punk inspired graphics adorn the boards and accessories and we wanted to expand that fresh look to the world around the toys. Let’s take a look.
STUNTS AND GEAR
Your regular, average, bland breakfast table is turned upside down when it is converted into a Hot Wheels Skate park. We set out to make a piece that felt like a skateboarding stunt reel. We had two separate, but equally important goals. First, the sequence had to be dynamic and stunt-packed, like an epic skateboarding stunt reel. Second, we had to show off all the cool illustrated gear that represented each boarder’s unique style. So, we employed a combination of stunt shots and pseudo slow motion shots that showed off the gear. We had a lot of fun working with an expert fingerboarder capturing a surprisingly wide array of unique tricks.
PUNK AESTHETIC
If you were a skateboarder in school, you know there is a whole world of punk illustration to explore on the fringes of a notebook. Skulls, bones, splats, floating eyeballs, pizza, weird faces, cool typography, thick and chunky linework… the list goes on—it is an organic subculture filled with rich imagery. Hot Wheels even decided to do an alternate design of it's iconic logo in the style. So, we sought to augment our scene with a colorful, punk style kitchen as the backdrop for all of our stunts.
PUNK AESTHETIC
If you were a skateboarder in school, you know there is a whole world of punk illustration to explore on the fringes of a notebook. Skulls, bones, splats, floating eyeballs, pizza, weird faces, cool typography, thick and chunky linework… the list goes on—it is an organic subculture filled with rich imagery. Hot Wheels even decided to do an alternate design of it's iconic logo in the style. So, we sought to augment our scene with a colorful, punk style kitchen as the backdrop for all of our stunts.
PUNK AESTHETIC
If you were a skateboarder in school, you know there is a whole world of punk illustration to explore on the fringes of a notebook. Skulls, bones, splats, floating eyeballs, pizza, weird faces, cool typography, thick and chunky linework… the list goes on—it is an organic subculture filled with rich imagery. Hot Wheels even decided to do an alternate design of it's iconic logo in the style. So, we sought to augment our scene with a colorful, punk style kitchen as the backdrop for all of our stunts.
EVERYTHING AND THE KITCHEN SINK
This is the real world kitchen that we see before we go into the world of Hot Wheels Skate. We see it for only two seconds but, that doesn’t mean that we could leave anything out. Everything still has to be there because this digital set created a common reference point for our 2D artists to draw all the different angles of the kitchen. Any additional angles we needed could be set up with a virtual camera and captured as reference for our 2D Illustrators.
EVERYTHING AND THE KITCHEN SINK
This is the real world kitchen that we see before we go into the world of Hot Wheels Skate. We see it for only two seconds but, that doesn’t mean that we could leave anything out. Everything still has to be there because this digital set created a common reference point for our 2D artists to draw all the different angles of the kitchen. Any additional angles we needed could be set up with a virtual camera and captured as reference for our 2D Illustrators.
BREAK IT DOWN
It just helps when everything but the toy is CG. This transition boots out the Wheelie O’s box and makes way for the live-action toy. We did a simulation for the cereal being ejected from the bowl. And had an illustrated puff from the impact transitioning the scene to an illustrated kitchen. Most importantly, having a CG set means we can maximize our color and light choices and tweak them helping the toys stand out better. It takes a ka-billion micro passes to cross the finish line.
BREAK IT DOWN
It just helps when everything but the toy is CG. This transition boots out the Wheelie O’s box and makes way for the live-action toy. We did a simulation for the cereal being ejected from the bowl. And had an illustrated puff from the impact transitioning the scene to an illustrated kitchen. Most importantly, having a CG set means we can maximize our color and light choices and tweak them helping the toys stand out better. It takes a ka-billion micro passes to cross the finish line.
BREAK IT DOWN
It just helps when everything but the toy is CG. This transition boots out the Wheelie O’s box and makes way for the live-action toy. We did a simulation for the cereal being ejected from the bowl. And had an illustrated puff from the impact transitioning the scene to an illustrated kitchen. Most importantly, having a CG set means we can maximize our color and light choices and tweak them helping the toys stand out better. It takes a ka-billion micro passes to cross the finish line.
3D ANIMATIC
Before any shot in live-action takes place, we pull together an animatic in 3D. We do this for a couple of reasons. First, we can precisely lay out the toys to scale and stage each stunt. This helps accurately nail down how much time we need to convey the full stunt. Second, we can test out our digital sets and backgrounds and make improvements to our illustrated kitchen designs. Putting together a 3D animatic ensures that we get all of our scene pieces moving correctly to time, before we ever start shooting. This way we have a visual target to shoot for and as you can see, the fingerboarder blew our animatic out of the water.
3D ANIMATIC
Before any shot in live-action takes place, we pull together an animatic in 3D. We do this for a couple of reasons. First, we can precisely lay out the toys to scale and stage each stunt. This helps accurately nail down how much time we need to convey the full stunt. Second, we can test out our digital sets and backgrounds and make improvements to our illustrated kitchen designs. Putting together a 3D animatic ensures that we get all of our scene pieces moving correctly to time, before we ever start shooting. This way we have a visual target to shoot for and as you can see, the fingerboarder blew our animatic out of the water.
GREENSCREEN TO DIGITAL SET
It is crucial to control every element of the shot to get a clear view of the action. We shot everything on a green screen so that we could get all the action into a tightly controlled digital set. We control the light consistency, the color balance and the camera tracking making sure that our raw plate can be converted into a final image that feels natural.
GREENSCREEN TO DIGITAL SET
It is crucial to control every element of the shot to get a clear view of the action. We shot everything on a green screen so that we could get all the action into a tightly controlled digital set. We control the light consistency, the color balance and the camera tracking making sure that our raw plate can be converted into a final image that feels natural.
GREENSCREEN TO DIGITAL SET
It is crucial to control every element of the shot to get a clear view of the action. We shot everything on a green screen so that we could get all the action into a tightly controlled digital set. We control the light consistency, the color balance and the camera tracking making sure that our raw plate can be converted into a final image that feels natural.
CATCH YOU LATER
We had a ton of cool skatepark obstacles and illustrated gear that inspired us to create the perfect fingerboarding session—something that should be part of every well-balanced breakfast. Enjoy.
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