May and June 2014 brought us back to working alongside Adam Dadswell and Martin Green, providing Animation for The Tour De France 2014.  A collaboration built on an existing working relationship and a shared understanding of what large scale screen delivery requires.

Martin Green was Creative Director for the Team Presentation for the Tour de France, with Adam taking the software producer seat. The brief was ambitious with a stage designed by Ala Lloyd, incorporating a 32x9 metre main screen with two curved rows of MiStrip LEDs running along the length underneath. Leeds based film house, Sodium, handled the shooting and editing of the vox pops and live action sections, leaving the team intros and stings to Mutual Vision (Previously JSCGI).

The technical challenge came from the MiStrips and the main screen sitting approximately three metres apart. Running a single set of visuals across both created severe parallaxing issues, identified and resolved during testing at CT London before it became a problem on site. The solution was two layered visuals using z depth to render separate foreground and background sequences. It matched up cleanly on site and worked exactly as intended. 

A pre-vis was used throughout production to demonstrate the interaction to the wider team, keeping everyone aligned before anything was committed to. 

The show was broadcast live on ITV4 and was well received in the press following the event. Guardian coverage linked below: http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/jul/04/yorkshire-saddles-tour-de-france-2014-rides-into-town-cycling

Agency: NISH Design