Somesuch director Daniel Wolfe, editor Paul Watts, and The Mill VFX team craft the riveting origin story of Maurice Ashley, a chess-obsessed Brooklyn kid who became the game’s first black grandmaster.

From Hennessy: “In the hot Brooklyn summer of the early 90s, young Maurice Ashley trains his mind against the Black Bear School of Chess. The harsh lessons handed out by the School’s most fearsome players set Maurice on his path to making history.”
 

Client: Hennessy

Agency: Droga5
Creative Chairman: David Droga
Executive Creative Director: Alexander Nowak
Creative Director: Thom Glover
Sr. Copywriter: Emily Berger
Sr. Art Director: Jason Gold
Group Account Director: Lindsay Cole
Account Director: Marissa Guerra
Account Supervisor: Vanessa Foinquinos, Mosito Ramaili
Chief Creation Officer: Sally-Ann Dale

Production: Somesuch
Director: Daniel Wolfe
Founding Partner: Sally Campbell, Tim Nash
Managing Director / Executive Producer: Nicky Barnes
Executive Producer: Maddie Carlton
Producer: Adriana Cebada Mora
Director of Photography: Diego Garcia

VFX: The Mill
Director of Production: Andrew Sommerville
Production Supervisor: Heino Henning
Senior Producer: Mandy Harris
Associate Producer: Nathan Niamehr
Production Support: Roshni Kakad, Shivangi Mehta
Shoot Supervisor: Dan Williams, Ruben Vandebroek
Creative Director: Dan Williams, Gavin Wellsman
2D Lead Artist: Keith Sullivan
3D Lead Artist: Yong Chan Kim
Art Director: Fionna Lanning
2D Artists: Michael Almodovar, Anton Anderson, Lucia Hill Barroso, James Cudahy, Ting Jung-Hsu, Nasser Mandavi, Dhruv Shankar, Prajeesh Chaliyam, Clive Donal Narcies, Naga Praveen Kumar Y, Neeraj Rajput, Nishith Thallasseri, Rahul Bhardwaj, Subodh Kumar
3D Artists: Pablo Estrella You, Song Eun Hwang, Aldo Martinez Calzadilla, Ciaran Moloney, Alek Vacura, Yimo Xu, Murali Krishna Reddy, Showber Shadik, Verru Ramesh, Bharat Ediga, Manoj Ravi, Netaji Paila
Designer: Dom Han
Animation: Michael Davin

Editorial: Cut + Run
Editor: Paul Watts
Executive Producer: Ellese Shell
Edit Assist: Beau Dickson, James Donahue, Craig Griffiths
VFX Production

Color: Framestore
Colorist: Simon Bourne
Senior Colour Producer: Chris Anthony