In a colorful Brazilian favela, young people go about their day-to-day lives. They play soccer, skateboard, and listen to music on the subway just like any normal young person would. But something's wrong. These kids are invisible, just clothes in motion.
What begins as an eye-catching commercial takes on a tragic edge when it finally hits you these people are dead. It's an understated and clever way to draw attention to the 30,000 young people murdered in Brazil every year. According to Amnesty International, which commissioned the spot as part of its Young Black Alive campaign, it's the equivalent of a small airplane of full of young people crashing every two days; only this plane has a passenger list that that is predominately black (77%).
This hard-hitting spot required visual effects that brought life to characters lacking in the characteristics most people attach to the human form. With ParaRaio Filmes handling modeling and rendering, and Hero Live Studio owning animation, they quickly determined what would bring the project home, on budget and in top form: motion capture.
Cloth simulation on multiple characters with various types of material wasn't possible on our given timeline, explains John Claude Phillips, ParaRaio's VFX supervisor, lighter, and compositor. So we turned to Hero Live, which has a very adaptable motion-capture setup and a lot of expertise.
Hero Live's setup is driven by the Xsens MVN suit, a portable system that's been described as the GoPro of motion capture. For a start-up it was a lot easier than buying a whole motion-capture studio, says Frederico Junqueira, Hero Live Studio's CEO and co-founder. You can take it anywhere you want and it just works, whether you want to capture inside a room or in an open space.
The shoot for the spot took place over a couple of days in Rio de Janeiro, with detailed on-set measurements and lighting data captured to help integrate the visual effects. Then it was up to Hero Live Studio to provide the animation data for the invisible characters. They decided to hire a couple of actors for the job but, as Junqueira soon found, MVN's flexibility meant that anyone could become a performer.
I love the idea that the animators can use the mocap suit, he says. I tell animators that they don't need to spend their whole life in front of the computer. They should stand up and move. It's something that's only possible in small studios, because the bigger ones have more rigid production lines.
MVN's ease-of-use also allowed the spot to feature a scene, which would have been impossible to create through traditional animation. This particular shot features an invisible character performing the dan a do passinho, an intricate Brazilian funk dance. It's a brief but important moment - the intrinsic happiness and liveliness of the dance is turned upside down with a final twist.
I had to find a guy who could perform the dance, so I called dance schools until we found a dancer, explains Junqueira. We had to train him, and record him in the suit. It's only a few seconds in the finished spot - but it would have been very difficult to do that with frame-by-frame animation.
Once the mocap data was in the bag, Hero Live Studio shipped it back to ParaRaio for integration with the background plates. It was a crucial part of the process - any anomalies in the information could have resulted in much arduous back-and-forth between the two companies.
Thankfully the data Hero Live Studio captured played nicely with ParaRaio's pipeline. Movements captured by the MVN suit were fed into Autodesk's 3ds Max to animate clothes and (invisible) characters created in Marvelous Designer.
The motion capture had to be very clean, says Phillips. We needed enough pre-roll animation so the cloth could rest correctly on the characters, and a simulation that would calculate accurately without exploding. Jittering or popping joints on the characters would make the cloth behave erratically. Thanks to Hero Live Studio, this was a non issue.
Junqueira was proud of his contribution to the finished spot, and its altruistic nature made it a worthwhile project to be involved in. We had a good reason to do it, he says. It's intelligent and subtle. When you watch the commercial, you don't think that these people are dead. When you realize that, it's a punch to the stomach.
Most recent headlines
11/12/2025
Dalet, a leading provider of cloud-native, end-to-end media workflow solutions, ...
28/11/2025
Nadia Fall attends the 2025 Sundance Film Festival premiere of Brides at the Egyptian Theatre on January 24, 2025, in Park City, Utah. (Photo by Donyale West/...
28/11/2025
It's easy to ignore those little red update available badges. But when it ...
28/11/2025
WASHINGTON Federal Communications Commission has released a tentative agenda for the December Open Commission Meeting scheduled for Thursday, December 18, 2025 ...
28/11/2025
The Professional Fighters League is looking to super-serve fans of mixed martial...
28/11/2025
Fubo has released in beta on select Roku devices a new feature that lets users display up to four simultaneous streams at once....
28/11/2025
The WNBA playoffs and Week 4 of the NFL regular season highlight the list of live sports events airing on television this weekend....
28/11/2025
The 32nd class of honorees to the B+C Hall of Fame took to the stage at New York's Ziegfeld Ballroom on September 26 for a gala induction event. Click below...
28/11/2025
We hold in our hands the very last Next Text for Next TV, the weekly back-and-fo...
28/11/2025
DirecTV said it made a deal with EchoStar to buy EchoStar's video businesses, including satellite-TV provider Dish TV and virtual MVPD Sling TV, for $1 plus...
28/11/2025
The Broadcasting+Cable Hall of Fame, the premier industry event paying tribute to the influencers, innovators and shining lights of broadcast, cable and streami...
28/11/2025
Friday 28 November 2025
Sky Sports x Slawn drop limited-edition football jersey...
28/11/2025
Rohde & Schwarz shows resilience in a challenging environment, revenue exceeds t...
28/11/2025
Unwrapped: The Toy Show Appeal - airing this Sunday on RT One and RT Player- s...
27/11/2025
LONDON Vizrt has added several AI-driven advanced features offering improved speed, intelligence and accuracy in the newest version of its media asset managemen...
27/11/2025
Prime Video has launched AI-powered video season recaps in a beta version for select English-language Prime Original series in the U.S., a move Amazon is callin...
27/11/2025
Back to All News
Netflix's Raat Akeli Hai: The Bansal Murders Marks a Grand...
27/11/2025
27 Nov 2025
GSMA brings M360 Eurasia 2026 to Samarkand in partnership with VEON...
27/11/2025
Tahar Rahim and Izuka Hoyle star in the gripping six-part Sky Original from Acad...
27/11/2025
Thursday 27 November 2025
Sky Arts Reveals the Nation's Greatest Basslines - and Queen Reign Supreme
The UK's most iconic basslines have been revealed...
27/11/2025
Back to All News
Stranger Things 5': Prepare for One Last Adventure With O...
27/11/2025
The media industry has a paradox at its core. It's an industry built on light, color and imagination, yet behind the scenes, it's powered by one of the ...
27/11/2025
Rating reflects rating progress across areas including policies, diversity & inclusion, health & safety and Net Zero leadership
Winchester, UK, 27 November 202...
27/11/2025
What are the industry standards for Retail Media? Kathryn explains that certification is based on the IAB Europe Retail Media Measurement Standards and the IAB ...
27/11/2025
World champion boxer and Irish sporting icon Katie Taylor will be in studio this...
27/11/2025
Roblox, one of the world's most popular online gaming platforms for primary ...
27/11/2025
Black Friday is leveling up. Get ready to score one of the biggest deals of the season - 50% off the first three months of a new GeForce NOW Ultimate membership...
26/11/2025
SVG Sit-Down: Prime Video EP Mike Muriano Previews Massive Black Friday Slate Fe...
26/11/2025
A cinematic snow sculpture at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival. Photo by Randall Michelson...
26/11/2025
Book podcasts are booming. On Spotify, you'll find everything from celebrity book clubs to deep dives with bestselling authors. And in markets where audiobo...
26/11/2025
Mumbai, November 24, 2025: In a first-of-its-kind initiative, JioStar, in collab...
26/11/2025
LONDON Factual content producer ITN Productions has launched a new low-latency IP gallery for news bulletins....
26/11/2025
MIAMI TelevisaUnivision said it struck a new multiyear distribution agreement with YouTube TV that includes distribution of TelevisaUnivision's U.S. network...
26/11/2025
OpenDrives, Inc., a leader in software-defined data storage and data services, today announced the launch of the Atlas Corporate Creative Solution. This new Atl...
26/11/2025
Disguise, the industry-leading company powering the world's biggest live performances, is partnering with pioneering LED wall manufacturer DVS to give atten...
26/11/2025
HighField AI, the pioneer in agentic and multimodal automation for broadcast and media production, today announced the expansion of its global channel partner n...
26/11/2025
As high-stakes Premier League fixtures approach and additional premium content launches, with MONO positioning themselves to dominate Thailand's sports stre...
26/11/2025
Hosting a wide variety of events from high-intensity NHL games to complex live music concerts and major entertainment productions, Montreal's 21,000 capacit...
26/11/2025
Vizrt, the leader in live production technology revolutionizing viewer engagement and experience, releases AI-driven advances focusing on speed, intelligence, a...
26/11/2025
ITN Productions, an award-winning factual content producer, today launched a new low-latency IP gallery for news bulletins. Responsible for delivering a leading...
26/11/2025
Ikegami reports ongoing advances throughout 2025 in developing and delivering coordinated television production solutions that maximize quality, versatility and...
26/11/2025
Following the Nov. 21 blackout of NBCUniversal channels on Fubo, the two sides have traded barbs about their inability to reach a new carriage deal....
26/11/2025
LONDON As TV sports rights become increasingly important for both broadcasters and streamers, Ampere Analysis predicts global investment in the genre will surpa...
26/11/2025
LOS ANGELES Vubiquity said it has achieved the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Media & Entertainment Competency as part of the AWS Partner Network (APN). This designa...
26/11/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission's Enforcement Bureau said it has entered into a consent decree with Comcast calling for the cable company t...
26/11/2025
Berklee Named to the Hollywood Reporters Top Music Schools List The publication highlights the college's screen scoring program, industry partnerships, and ...
26/11/2025
Back to All News
Animated Series Love Through a Prism' Casts New Light on ...
26/11/2025
Back to All News
NALIP Unveils Fifth Cohort of Director Incubator
Social Impact
26 November 2025
United States
Link copied to clipboard
The National Assoc...
26/11/2025
YouView Achieves Greenly Gold Certification for SustainabilityNov 26, 2025
YouView is proud to announce a Gold Certification award from Greenly for our perform...
In a colorful Brazilian favela, young people go about their day-to-day lives. They play soccer, skateboard, and listen to music on the subway just like any normal young person would. But something's wrong. These kids are invisible, just clothes in motion.
