G Active: Water Made Active

The first-ever human figure made from 100% liquid. Water Made Active.

To launch Gatorade’s new electrolyte water G Active, in collaboration with TBWAChiatDay, we made a true-to-life water athlete, animated it in mid air, and caught it on camera.

The Rain Rig

Our custom-made “rain rig” dripped water in complete sequence and harmony. It recreated the figure of a real athlete in a liquid animation. Each unit contained 64 litres of water, with 8 units running at any one time. This meant we used half a tonne of water to bring the whole system together.

Data & Motion-Capture

To make the water character true-to-life, we motion-captured a human athlete running, jumping and kickboxing. Then data from the motion capturing told the water rig when to turn its nozzles on and off.

2,048 Water Switches

The water droplets turned on and off using a series of 2,048 switches. The team used flash-lighting to illuminate and “suspend” the water droplets in mid air. This meant each frame had a millimetre and microsecond accuracy. As a result we transmitted an entire layer of data through the entire system in just a microsecond.

Camera Positioning

We had to take each frame and process it in two ways. First of all to squash it, to compensate for gravitational acceleration, and second to slice it. We stored the data for each frame in a controller unit and triggered it using the camera.

To have the camera positioned at the right angle for the shot, we programmed the water rig to sync with our motion control team. Every time our motion control specialists set a camera sync and a flash, the water was dropped at that precise moment.

The Team

Our amazing team designed and built the technical infrastructure in less than ten weeks. During which we brought together more than 20,000 individual parts and custom-made components. So in effect more than 5000 man hours were taken up in the design and build of the system. See more of Cole Paviour’s work here.