Given the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create the Houston Texans’ pre-game opening video for the debut of the world’s largest in-stadium HD video boards installed this summer at Reliant Stadium, integrated production company The Famous Group delivered a bone-crunching 3D animated battle of NFL robots designed to fire up fans. Inspired by films such as “Transformers” and “Pacific Rim”, The Famous Group (www.thefamousgroup.com) developed and directed a thrilling 60-second film depicting a battle of robots representing NFL teams. 3D animation and other high-end CG work was handled by Flux Animation, Auckland, NZ (http://fluxmedia.co.nz/) under leadership of Jeremy Ball, who worked on CG rendering for blockbuster films including “Avatar”, “The Hobbit”, “Lord of the Rings” and others and previously served as a Technical Director at Weta Digital, one of the world’s premiere digital visual effect companies cofounded by director Sir Peter Jackson. Shown immediately prior to kickoff at each home game, the film (https://vimeo.com/73010733) opens with a Texans‘ logo flashed by spotlight into the sky akin to the bat signal in “Batman”, which prompts a herd of 11 robotic bulls in Texans’ gear to answer the call and stampede into the stadium. Once on the field, they are met by 11 cyborgs customized in the colors and team logo of that week’s NFL opponent, and a smash-mouth battle ensues. On the verge of defeat, the 11 opponents suddenly morph into one giant cyborg, prompting the robotic bulls transform themselves into one huge “Bulltron” robot. During the head-to-head combat, the opponent cyborg attempts to escape by flying out of the stadium, where upon the Bulltron soars up in pursuit, captures it in midair and hurls the opponent crashing down on the stadium field before letting out a triumphant roar. “The Texans have had an animated open for 10 years which was a fan favorite, but we wanted to create something that fits the grand scale of our new boards and is a wow moment for our fans,” said Gavin Gehrt, executive producer, director of video production for the Houston Texans. “We’ve worked with The Famous Group for a number of years and put them to the creative and technical test to go all out, and they over delivered.” “Our goal was to create the crown jewel of the Texans’ game-day visual presentation, a video to match these gigantic state-of-the-art HD boards,” said Andrew Issacson, executive producer, The Famous Group, based in Culver City, CA and New York, NY. “We developed the story line of a colossal battle of the NFL cyborgs, drafted story boards, directed the action, and partnered with some of the best CG people in the world at Flux Animation to deliver a film that’s worthy of the new boards and really gets fans revved up.” Issacson added that as the largest supplied of in-stadium content for professional teams in all four major sports leagues, The Famous Groups has the project management experience and production efficiencies to deliver dazzling, complex work at an exceptional value. Manufactured by Mitsubishi Electronics’ Diamond Vision Systems Division, the newly installed boards provide jitter-free HD images with 4.4 trillion colors and stretch across each end zone section of Reliant Stadium. Each screen has an image area of 52’ x 277’ for 14,549 square feet of display surface and weighs more than 100 tons. More than a decade of strong sports experience In addition handling in-stadium content for the last eight Super Bowls and numerous NHL All-Star Games, The Famous Group has a long track record of creating in-stadium, broadcast and digital work for dozens of NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB teams. Other recent sports work includes Draft Day events with the NFL and Nike, video and in-stadium content for a number of New York area teams (New York Giants, New York Jets, New York Knicks, New York Rangers, Brooklyn Nets and New Jersey Devils), pre-game films the St. Louis Rams and many others. The company is also recognized for its Stats-In-A-Box statistics system, providing NFL fans with real-time fantasy football stats displayed on the stadium boards during games. The Famous Group developed the system with the NFL, and it is now in use by all 32 teams. The company offers custom templates to teams depending on the aspect ratio of their boards, or if they have special requests. Credits: Client: Houston Texans Executive Producer: Gavin Gehrt Campaign: Kickoff Video Production company: The Famous Group, LA/NY ECD: Greg Harvey Executive Producer: Andrew Isaacson Creative Director: Jesse Austin Producers: Nick Molo and Brandon Grabowski Editor: Steve Davis CG/CD animation: Flux Animation, Auckland, NZ Producer: Brent Chambers Director: Laban Dickinson Technical Director: Bas Bariball Modeling and Lighting: Jeremy Ball Characters Modeling: Adrian Rodgers