Spin Productions flies high this winter with recent work for the Top Flite Golf Company, a project that was truly "out of this world." Spin's Senior Inferno Artist and Owner Keith Adams technical directed and helped conceptualize the Top Flite spot, "Quest for Distance," for the Connecticut based Colangelo Synergy Marketing. In the :30 commercial, an Infinity golf ball is "launched" into space with the swing of a club and hurtles through the atmosphere before deploying a parachute and softly landing on a golf course. A wide shot reveals that it has now become part of a larger, perfectly formed Infinity logo made up of other Infinity golf balls that have also just landed, still smoking from re-entry.

As Technical Director, Adams worked with commercial and feature film Director John Lindley (Pleasantville) to create the ideal environment to hit the Infinity golf ball out into the stratosphere. The judicious use of camera movement became an integral part of the final 'feel' of the animation style. "We needed to get a shot of the ball going from tee off to about 6000 feet in four seconds," said Adams. "We used a never ending pullbackâ through the clouds that gave a sense of speed and distance."

Although the one day shoot was held on a golf course with actual golfers, not one golf ball was actually hit that day. Spin made 50 customized tracking cubes that were used instead. The real golf balls, along with the parachutes, were later shot as separate elements in a studio over green screen.