Drive time: digital elements add drama to a NASCAR television commercial.(Video)(National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing)(Kroma)

The CG artists at visual effects boutique Kroma were sitting in the driver's seat while creating three compelling, action-oriented TV commercials for FOX television's NASCAR coverage.

To illustrate just how tough the sport's drivers are, the tongue-in-cheek spots feature famous racecar drivers talking about the dangers athletes in other sports face while they nonchalantly pilot their cars through the mayhem of a NASCAR event. In "Rear-Ended," for instance, driver Tony Stewart states how worried he is about football players and the hits they take--just as his car is struck from behind and spins out of control, and a tire rolls from the vehicle toward the camera.

For the interior scenes of the spot, Stewart was filmed against greenscreen inside a mechanical rig set up to simulate the movement of a car. During postproduction, Kroma's "driving team" integrated those elements with live-action footage and CG effects to make it appear as if Stewart were inside an actual car.

The artists also added CG safety gear and other digital enhancements, using Softimage's XSI content-creation software, and replaced the greenscreen backgrounds with composited views of the racetrack. In the process, they created a number of details, including a CG visor on the helmet Stewart wore during the shoot. "If you look closely, you can see moving reflections of the track in the visor," notes visual effects supervisor Bert Yukich. "We also added a few hairline scratches to the surface as well, for realism."

For the exterior scenes, director Joseph Kahn from HSI filmed a dozen cars moving around an oval track. Then, Kroma supplemented the real vehicles in post with CG models to create a highly choreographed, tight pack of 30 to 40 cars typical of NASCAR ...