Porsche - The Legend of Pedro Rodriguez

Advertising – '21

Racing driver Pedro Rodríguez was one of a kind, a legend in Latin America, and an idol to Porsche fans all over the world. And not only because he was a crazy skilled driver: he made history driving the iconic Porsche 917k, which we can only assume was based on a discarded Batmobile design deemed too unrealistic.

Fifty years after his tragic demise while racing in Germany, we teamed up with The Community and Porsche to honor some of his feats.

Crank up the volume and get ready for a 60-second trip at 300 km/h.

This is our director’s cut version for: The Legend of Pedro Rodríguez!

Let’s start by saying we were granted unprecedented creative freedom in this project by both the agency and the client.

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 that a 3D model of the car to produce some sweet 3D layouts was a fundamental asset to get our hands on.

To build Pedro’s world we thought about ’60s and early ’70s graphic design, movies, cartoons and tv shows, and discussed with Juan what pop culture and art milestones had left a mark on our styles. 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 it to see what happy accidents we encountered.

Jumping from After, 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. An intense animatic process ensued, where tons of new ideas and references kept flowing and popping up spontaneously.

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 in 3s, with 4s and 1s as extremes.

The comp was going to be extra heavy⁠—we knew it and wanted it to be that way. Lots of glows, defocus, and grain. 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 about a whole month to produce.

We promise you everything was under painful control.

One last thing you might be wondering: what about the square format, with rounded edges?

We 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. 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 we were already showing at the end?

That was the last touch. The vintage vibe was exactly what we needed to close the circle.We raise our cups to Pedro and what his star at 300km/h might bring us.

Press & Awards

- Ladawards: LAD ORO 2022 - Animation.
- Florida Animation Festival: Official Selection.
- Motion Design Awards: Video of the Day.
- New York Festivals Shortlist: Film Craft: Animation.
- FAB: Official Selection.
- Golden Short Film Festival: Golden Animated Short Category Official Selection.
- Viborg Animation Festival: VAF Best Comissioned Film.
- FestAnca: Extremely Short Section of Extremely Short Films.
- El Ojo Iluso: Selección Oficial.
- Rio Webfest: Best Web Advertisement.
- Behance: Featured in Behance.net
- Vimeo Staff Pick.
- Stash Media.
- Graffica.
- Wine After Coffee.
- @weloveanimations
- @motiondesignawards
- @motiongraphics_collective
- @twineanimation
- @animationlove_

Credits

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 Artaza, Pendable Animation & Alcides Izaguirre. Clean Up: Alan Mohamed, Sofía Díaz, Gabriela Bosco, Daniela Donato, Julieta Culaciati, Clara Riavec & Rafael Pires. Compositing: Mariano Fernández Russo. Render: Yago Lopez. Sound (CC Director’s Cut Version) Music: Facundo Capece. Sound Design: Felipe Barandalla. Client: Porsche. Agency: The Community Global CCO, Founder Jose Molla / Joaquin Molla. Executive Creative Director: Ricky Vior. Associate Creative Director: Gabriel Da Silva. Associate Creative Director: Rodrigo González. Content Creator Lead: Rosario Avila. EVP, Head of Integrated Production: Laurie Malaga. Maker/s (Producers) Executive Producer: Debi Rubiani. Sr. Production Lead: Juan Manuel Sosa. Account Team: VP, Managing Director Latam: Julieta Rey. Brand Lead Regional Latam: Sandra Giraldo. Brand Supervisor: Barbara Palacio/Julia Isabel Hernandez. Connections Strategy: Sebastian Ibarr. Digital Content Director: Monica Godoy. Brand Strategy Director: Alessandra Noceda. Brand Strategy Planner: Alejandra Margain. Business Affairs Business Affairs Director: Natalie Greenman. Business Manager: Priscila Hourihan. Production Assistant: Aldana Bea. Photographer: Richard Monning.