Graphics on the green.(USER FOCUS: BROADCAST)(use of graphics software)

Once a Sunday afternoon-only televised sporting event, golfing has, on occasion, hit a round or two in prime time, as was the case with the recent The Battle of the Bridges on ABC. Even though the event had plenty of star power with golfing greats Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, the network added extra wattage with a dramatic show opener created by New York design/post studio Perception.

The show's introduction featured an array of complex 3D and 2D animation, motion-graphic design, digital compositing, and editing, and includes a sequence in which viewers feel like they are being pulled into a Monet painting.

The 90-second segment begins with the camera focused on a dimpled white orb, the starting point for the coverage of the match between pairs Woods and John Daly, and Mickelson and Retief Goosen. "This was big," says Daniel Gonzalez, visual effects director at Perception. "It was ABC Sports, it was prime time, and it was the best golfers in the world."

Perception was approached to do the Bridges work by ABC, which liked the speed and ideas the group presented for an earlier project. According to Gonzalez, his team pitched eight concepts for Bridges, and ABC chose the most ambitious one, "which we saw as a clever twist on the typical sports open," he says.

Working on a two-week production schedule, the artists opened with the vast emptiness of space and an exploding star that resembled a golf ball-golf's version of the big bang. Next, the segment took viewers on a journey through the history of the world to present day, with a similar golf-centric point of view.

The scenes transitioned seamlessly through the ages. The first one contained what appears to be an ancient cave painting of primitive man perfecting his golf swing. Through sedimentary layers, the scene rose to one resembling ancient Rome, where the name "Mickelson" was etched into an archway, followed by an image of the great golfer composited into the period scene. As the camera pulled back, the visuals transitioned into a da Vinci world, where Daly's name and likeness appeared. Another seamless transition brought viewers into a three-dimensional Monet Water Lilies landscape featuring Goosen. The piece ended with Woods represented as the power and strength of the Industrial Age.

In the Swing of Things