Four baseball legends swap baseball bats for Proton Packs in DirecTV’s newest Ghostbusters-inspired spot

What happens when you watch a baseball game and Ghostbusters at the same time? You get the GOATBusters.

In DirecTV’s newest spot, baseball superstars Alex Rodriguez, David Ortiz, Ken Griffey Jr. and Randy Johnson, team up to fight a stadium full of possessed mascots… and a larger-than-life “foul ball”. The four prove they are the Greatest. Of. All. Time by saving the day with the help of the iconic Ghostbusters Proton Pack.

In collaboration with director Jim Jenkins of O Positive Films and agency TBWA\Chiat\Day Los Angeles, our VFX specialists were tapped to add explosions, Proton Pack beams, and CG characters. The spot is topped off with a colour grade from Mill Colourist Mark Gethin.

Speaking on the spooky spot, VFX Supervisor James Mulholland shares that: “We had the great opportunity of collaborating again with Jim Jenkins from O Positive to create this exciting spot for DirecTV. We had a blast on set on a 4 day night shoot at the Oakland A’s RingCentral Coliseum Stadium.

We utilized many facets of CG visual effects including a running crowd, huge explosions, proton beams, destruction and CG characters, expertly crafted by 3D leads Justin Kurtz and Yong Kim and 2D lead Andre Vidal and their respective teams.

Crowd FX required something a little more bespoke than the usual crowd job; the CG agents ran across seats, up stairs, and into doorways. We also crafted three CG mascots – Boston Red Sox’s Wally the Green Monster, Milwaukee Brewer’s Bernie Brewer, Texas Ranger’s Captain and the Cincinnati Red’s Mr Redlegs. Various smoke FX and Aura were created in Houdini, driven by the animation of the mascot ghosts to create a spooky look similar to the Ghostbusters movies.”

Want to hit a home run with your upcoming VFX project? Reach out to our team via our contact page. Explore careers at our award-winning company here.