Have you seen the latest Budweiser advertisement, "Everyday Heroes," featuring two teams of Clydesdales making their way across the country to ultimately meet in St. Louis? It's pretty nifty, and concludes with a big crowd waiting to celebrate the teams' arrival at the base of the Gateway Arch. But if you've followed the story on this campaign, that ending isn't quite possible just yet - because these folks aren't supposed to arrive in St. Louis until July 3, after visiting 21 U.S. cities on the way to celebrate the efforts of America's Everyday Heroes - police, firefighters, the military, et al. And checking the schedule, it appears that you can see the West Unit in Bismarck, North Dakota this weekend and the East unit in Atlanta, Georgia from June 23-26.

You can view the full advertisement here. [QuickTime required] Much more after the jump.


So how'd they get that crowd? Well, visual effects & design firm A52 got a swarm of 200 extras to make their way to the area underneath the Arch, and filmed them in various capacities so as to extrapolate a big crowd as well as show closeups whenever necessary. Specifically, a piece of software called Massive that, at its simplest, can be described as "crowd control" - literally, for this spot. The final ad, created by St. Louis-based Waylon, would show the Clydesdales that had been filmed over two days in St. Louis in various placements, such as on San Francisco's Golden Gate bridge. [below]

Additionally, the A52 team took footage of the city of St. Louis during the daytime, and graded it down in order to make it look like night - A52 designer Patrick Murphy described his efforts to make the shot look like nighttime as having "painted lights onto the windows of city buildings." Gotta love that.


The ad's credits are as follows:

AD AGENCY:  Waylon Ad
PRODUCTION COMPANY:  Tool of North Amerca
TELECINE:  Complete Post
EDITORIAL COMPANY:  Rock Paper Scissors
VISUAL EFFECTS COMPANY:  A52
MUSIC:  Amber Music
FINAL MIX:  Lime Studios