The team at Clubcamping in Buenos Aires shows off their multitude of animation and post talents in this frenetic, anime-flavored work for Porsche showcasing the exploits of Mexican Grand Prix driver Pedro Rodríguez.

Ana Sieglitz, EP and Partner at Clubcamping: “Pedro Rodríguez was one of a kind, a legend in Latin America, and an idol to Porsche fans all over the world. Fifty years after his tragic demise while racing in Germany, we teamed up with The Community and Porsche to honor some of his feats.

“We were granted unprecedented creative freedom in this project. But even before the slightest idea came to our minds, we knew one thing for sure: we needed the car to look perfect in 2D.

“Animating the Porsche 917K frame by frame, without a reference, sounded like the premise of the next Saw movie, so we decided a 3D model of the car to produce some sweet layouts was a fundamental asset to get our hands-on.

“To build Pedro’s world we thought about the ‘60s and early ‘70s graphic design, movies, cartoons, and tv shows. We agreed we wanted an overall vintage vibe but with modern visuals and animation ideas that would challenge our craft.

“Speed Racer meets Akira” was our pitch.

“In a process we like to call ‘blind parkour design’, we started importing materials into After Effects and mixing them to see what happy accidents we encountered.

“Jumping from After Effects, to Animate, to Photoshop, to C4D, trying things out, not thinking whether something might work or not, but simply doing it. Letting our subconscious sublimate.

“We wanted to show Pedro crossing the finish line in a badass way, preferably skidding, but despite having Akira as the main reference, we couldn’t quite sort it out.

“When it finally struck us, it felt so obvious. We could have missed the extremely unique opportunity to pay direct homage to Sensei Otomo’s masterpiece. There’s no going back from that.

Watch the making of:
 

 
“We wanted the animation timing to feel a little limited, but with lots of super-sharp poses and eases. We chose to work at 24fps and its multiples, focusing mainly on animating on 3s, with 4s and 1s as extremes.

“The comp was going to be extra heavy – lots of glows, defocus, and grain. So we had to experiment while saving resources at the same time, to avoid clogging it from the early stages.

“But the hardest comp ever was the one with the oil monster. It required a tremendous amount of coordination, organization, and patience, constantly going back and forth between layout, animation, cleanup, and comp. That shot alone took a month to produce.

“You might be wondering about the square format with rounded edges? We originally worked in a 2202 x 2202 1:1 format so as to easily come up with different versions later. The idea all along was to deliver a 16:9 format.

“As we went on, new details and compositions increasingly made sense when displayed in 1:1. But it just felt too Instagrammy. As if it was reframed and its sides were missing.

“We sat on it a little, and then El Señor Rodriguez himself inspired the final touch: what if we added a nice frame with rounded corners, giving it a lovely Super-8 vibe like the footage of Pedro at the end?

“That was the last touch. The vintage vibe was exactly what we needed to close the circle.”
 

 
Client: Porsche

Agency: The Community
Global CCO, Founder Jose Molla, Joaquin Molla
Executive Creative Director: Ricky Vior
Associate Creative Director: Gabriel Da Silva, Rodrigo González
Content Creator Lead: Rosario Avila
EVP, Head of Integrated Production: Laurie Malaga
Executive Producer: Debi Rubiani
Sr. Production Lead: Juan Manuel Sosa

Production Company: Clubcamping
Creative direction: Mariano Fernández Russo
Art Direction: Juan Barabani
EP: Ana Sieglitz & Juliana Millán
Line Production: Carolina Cantero
Animation Direction: Mariano Fernández Russo
Animatic: Mariano Fernández Russo
Illustration: Juan Barabani & Victoria Farelli
2D and Motion animation: Mariano Fernández Russo, Maricel Piazza, Emmanuel Zampalo, Franco Pelliciaro, Pablo Rago, Fernando Lamattina, Kate Pyor, Ana Artasa, Pendable Animation, Alcides Izaguirre
Clean up: Alan Mohamed, Sofía Díaz, Gabriela Bosco, Daniela Donato, Julieta Culaciati, Clara Riavec, Rafael Pires
Compositing: Mariano Fernández Russo
BTS Editor: Juan Raimondi
Render: Yago Lopez

Audio (director’s cut version)
Music: Facundo Capece
Sound Design: Felipe Barandalla