Gatorade – “Heart of a Lio”, the animated short film about Lionel Messi’s life
Glory only happens when you sweat for your dreams. Gatorade presents Heart of a Lio, an animated short film about Lionel Messi. #HeartOfALio
Gizmo, the Argentinian animation studio founded 14 years ago by Andrea Bacigalupo and Emmanuel Verruno, had the challenge of making “Heart of a Lio”, an inspiring story about pursuing your dreams. It is a 4 minute animated short film with Lionel Messi as the main character. The script was created by the agency TBWA\Chiat\Day LA for the Global Gatorade Soccer 2018 campaign.
This project was carried out under Ema Verruno´s, Flamboyant Paradise’s ( Directors duo Javier Lourenço and Antoine Quairiat) and Nico Presas’ direction. The production was made from its Gizmo’s headquarters in Buenos Aires and the team was composed by more than 80 talented artists.
Gatorade – Heart of a Lio – Behind-the-scenes
For this animated short film starring by Lionel Messi, the team worked an original aesthetic in which the design of stylized characters treated almost as sculptures with environments, textures and hyper realistic materials was combined. Beyond the stylization of these designs, cameras and photography have a more realistic cinematic search.
“To achieve this animation work, we have studied Messi in all its ages, both in its sport movements and its facial expressions – happy and euphoric moments, as well as moments of frustration and anger – to arrive at a natural and credible result” commented Ema Verruno.
“Regarding the story, we have sought more surreal resources for certain key moments in its history, either to highlight his feelings or to tell certain moments of his life in a more original way,” concluded Javier Lourenço.
“The film has a very cinematic treatment, just as it works in the great American and European animation studios,” commented Antoine Quairiat.
“We want to highlight the joint work we did with the agency in Los Angeles, creator of the script, especially with the global creative directors of Gatorade, Ariel Abramovici and Bruno Acanfora, who entrusted us with the project.” said Javier Lourenço.
“Without a doubt the great challenge was to achieve a fluid thread through the different sequences for a piece of almost 4 minutes”, concludes Nico Presas.
“We are more than satisfied with how we managed to tell this story that includes sequences of action, drama, comedy and epic”, highlights Andrea Bacigalupo.
“The life of Messi is an epic story of overcoming, from his soccer beginnings in Rosario, through his health problems, to his achievements and sporting successes that transformed him into the greatest star of world football. That road of ups and downs is what we have tried to capture in the aesthetic variety of each sequence of the piece” Concludes Ema Verruno.
With this new release, once again, Gizmo demonstrates why it has taken place in the global market of Animation studios, in the advertising market and in the production of Cinematics for the Gaming market.
Credits-
Client: Gatorade
Campaign: Heart of a Lio | Lionel Messi
Agency: TBWA\Chiat\Day
Chief Creative Officer: Renato Fernandez Global Creative Director: Doug Menezes Global Creative Director: Mark Peters Associate Creative Director: Bruno Acanfora Associate Creative Director: Ariel Abramovici
Director of Production: Brian O’Rourke Executive Producer: Guia Iacomin Senior Producer: Kaitlin Moore Associate Producer: Jack Cutler
Managing Director: Jerico Dig Cabaysa Brand Director: Robyn Morris
Brand Manager: Gabi Marino
Brand Manager: Spencer Audet
Group Planning Director: Scott MacMaster Global Planning Director: Martin Ramos Jr. Planner: Ryan Hagen
Director of Business Affairs: Robin Rossi Talent Payment Manager: Kevin Castro Senior Traffic Operations Manager: Judy Brill
Production: Gizmo
EPs: Andrea Bacigalupo, Ema Verruno
Directors: Ema, Flamboyant Paradise, Nico Presas
Production coordinator: Rocio Perez Lascano
Animators: Chris Granados, Mauro Serei, Pablo Lorenzo, Sebastian Buitrago Carmona, Ivonne Isla Solther, Eugen Sasu, Carolina Delgado, Yuri Perrini, Steven Arango, Federico Gimeno, Jorge Favian, Fregoso Ramos, Oscar Burgos, Alex Figueroa
CG Supervisor: Max Rocamora
Storyboard: Julio Azamor, Ivan Lublinsky
Animation supervisor: Rafael Jimenez
Layout: Chris Granados, Marco Di Monaco, Martin Lapetina,
Cloth simulation: Santiago Furlong
Character modeling: Laura Serna, Sofía Gariazzo, Diego Rudnitzky
Modeling: Martin Girgenti Pablo Focareta, Lautaro Schipizza, Marco Di Monaco
Rigging: Eduardo Núñez-Melgar, Felix R. Cuevas, Anderson Augusto
Characers: Laura Serna, Sofía Gariazzo, Luis De Gennaro, Diego Rudnitzky, Pablo Bellozas, Mauricio Fernández, Pedro Sciammarella
Sets and props: Pedro Sciammarella, Alejandro Ghio, Luis De Gennaro, Pablo Focareta, Marco Di Monaco, Lautaro Schipizza
Lighting lead: Paolo Tano Giordana
Lighting: Pedro Sciammarella, Alejandro Ghio, Juan Ignacio Casale, Mauricio Fernández, Marco Di Monaco, Mariano Mendoza, Luis De Gennaro
Character design: Flavio Greco Paglia, Fernando Sawa, Pablo Romanos, Ariel Anabitarte
Matte painting: Flavio Greco Paglia
Compositors: Ignacio Arevalo, Daniel Perez, Andres Chouhy, Paolo Tano Giordana, Pedro Sciammarella, Alejandro Ghio, Juan Ignacio Casale, Mauricio Fernández, Marco Di Monaco, Mariano Mendoza, Luis De Gennaro
VFX: Gui Marquez, Santiago Furlong
Production manager: Eva Amuchastegui, Daniela Kisinovsky, Sol Fernández, Agustina Rossito,
PAs: Agustina Moya, Rocío Kancepolski
Editors: Andrés Boero, Andrés Randy, Montero Bustamante
Music: Search Party
Composer: Nicholas Wright, Benny Reiner
Mix: Lime Studio
Sound: Stimmung
