fun firegeezer on 28 Jun 2008 05:17 pm
A Great Catch! - Unmasked
THE “GREAT CATCH” VIDEO THAT WE HAD POSTED for a few days at the top of the right sidebar has another story behind the story.
I imagine that many of you already know that it’s a staged stunt, but a lot of others never gave it a thought. Surprisingly, only one person wrote to tell me that it was a bit phony. So here’s the rest of the story:
The complete clip is actually a Gatorade commercial. I don’t know how much they’ve actually run it on tv beyond the Super Bowl, but the ad agency leaked it out onto the Web in January knowing that it would fly the universe in short order.
The first part of the clip is from an actual ballgame between Fresno and Tacoma and is genuine up until you hear the crack of the bat as the ball is hit. From there on, the digital artists take over. Using a mathematical calculation of what the trajectory would be, a camera pans what would be the flight path of the ball. Back at the studio, a digital technician put a ball image onto the picture at the correct place.
Then, as you might guess, actors take over the rest of the action, including the acrobatic “ball girl.” It must have been great fun putting that one together. “Batter up!!”
