2014 Winners & Shortlists

Brief Explanation

The Qatar Airways’ Land of FCB commercial opens on a Qatar Airways 777 plane arriving at the Land of FC Barcelona, where a flight attendant disembarks to take a journey through the incredible destination to the famous Camp Nou Stadium. Throughout her adventure she encounters some of the club’s most famous players past and present, experiences the rich history of FC Barcelona and meets the fans at the heart of the club. Such players include Spanish defender Gerard Piqué working in passport control, Neymar, the Brazilian star player who has ‘just landed’ at the club, Lionel Messi choreographing his dance-like moves at the FC Barcelona School of Performing Arts, and midfield artists Andrés Iniesta and Sergio Busquets creating a Pointillism-inspired goal celebration mural. Also featured is captain Carles Puyol, heading away a falling plant pot from two female fans talking football tactics. And ex-Barcelona striker and sports celebrity Gary Lineker as taxi driver who drives the flight attendant to see FC Barcelona take to the pitch at Camp Nou Stadium. We end on the Qatar Airways plane above the island of FC Barcelona – the shape and design of the FC Barcelona badge.

Creative Execution

Our mythical city is made up of buildings from different continents and from football themed architecture that we concepted and developed. We built a bespoke crowd of Barcelona fans and generated complete environments around our protagonists. The opening shot was created using CAD data to build the plane entirely in CG. The entire scene was constructed in CG complete with 3D ocean and a detailed island created by projecting matte paintings. A huge range of environments including the majority of the architecture, the bird’s-eye view of the stadium and shots within the city were either created from scratch or significantly enhanced using over 20 digital matte painting throughout the spot. Barcelona FC players were filmed against green screen in a studio and rotoscoped and composited into individual shots, including the painted mural scene in which the wall itself was CG. Multitudes of green screen shots were utilised in the film, including one head replacement of player Carles Puyol as he headbutts a falling pot. For the airport scenes, cars and many of the people were shot in Barcelona, while the background and new HIA terminal were shot in Qatar. The following sequence approaching the city is a combination of matte paintings and 3D pitches, people and buildings. For the final stadium scene, the crowds were created using replication software. The bird’s-eye shot of the stadium was filmed using a helicopter, and the environment was then filled with CG buildings, projected matte paintings of roads, moving traffic and detailed lighting effects.