Producer: Craig Murray
Player Animation: Walker TKL
Talent Animation: Mike McGrath
Additional Animation: Brian DeTagos
Additional Compositing: Matt Lucas
Producer Craig Murray reached out with a link to Walker TKLs work from Instagram. I was familiar from his work on the WNBA and with ESPN. We really wanted to use this look but needed to find a way to make it feel like the NBA on TNT. Craig cut me loose to explore some options to put in front of Creative Director Drew Watkins. I knew if it looked like Walker TKL doing his thing on TNT we would get shot down so I did some deep exploration on how to get it into what we did at Turner Sports. Number one was it had to fit the edit and the edits tended to be fast. Second, it seemed to me we needed to support a story with it so it needed an environment and setting to anchor it in reality. Drew had consistently emphasized a ‘through the lens’ approach with an emphasis placed on supporting the story over special effects.
I focused on the animated portion while Matt Lucas handled the ‘on court’ composites. I worked to place Walker TKLs amazing animated work inside of team or story specific environments. For the LeBron/Kareem portion we wanted to hand off the scoring championship because we knew that was one of the upcoming seasons storylines. Having a crown in the Lakers themed Sky while Kareem led into a King James dunk was a nice touch. I added little touches like clover leafs on the Boston ground, Grecian pillars in Giannis comp, Grizzly jaws behind Ja Morant and my personal favorite moment in the piece having a rocket rise in sync with the lyrics and the Rockets dunk through the clouds. This was about as pure motion graphics fun as I have had in my career.