Fanduel
Charles Barkley
- Immersive Experiences
- Original Content
- VFX
- Design
Doubling down on celebrity
For FanDuel’s “Think Like A Player” campaign, Preymaker worked with director Aaron Stoller (at Biscuit Films) to double down on the impact of featured sports hero, Charles Barkley. Though Charles Barkley is better known as a sports TV personality today, the former professional basketball player is remembered for being an 11-time NBA All-Star, 11-time member of the All-NBA Team, and the 1993 Most Valuable Player of the NBA. Capitalizing on this for FanDuel’s campaign, Wieden+Kennedy approached Preymaker with a simple concept: we want Charles Barkley of today to have a conversation with his younger self — athlete Charles Barkley in his prime.
A ton of tech behind a winning concept. As it should be. “Think Like A Player” is a heartwarming exchange between present-day Charles Barkley and his younger self.
A groundbreaking achievement in AI-assisted VFX
The Final Result? The closing sentiment of the spot lands when present-day Barkley turns to his younger self and confides, “I love you, young Chuck.” An earnest confession, and the core of the spot — delivered believably thanks to a ton of invisible work done by the Preymaker team.
The age old challenge? Time. As a high profile individual, the production team only had one day’s access to Barkley. And a very short timeline to the go-live date: two weeks from a locked edit to broadcast delivery. This meant that the traditional methods were out of the question. Usually, achieving a de-aged version of an actor involves either extensive CGI or a mix of prosthetic makeup and post-production enhancements. But given the tight turnaround these conventional approaches were impractical. Preymaker, known for pushing the boundaries of technology-driven storytelling, were tasked with designing an alternative.
An AI-Driven solution, designed by humans
Evaluating multiple approaches, Preymaker proposed a cutting-edge solution: an AI-generated young Charles Barkley, seamlessly composited into the final spot.The team designed a comprehensive workflow to bring this concept to life. First, they’d source archival material of young Charles Barkley. Next, they’d cast a lookalike actor to play young Charles Barkley’s stand-in on set. This archival footage and reenacted movement data would be the source material fed into an AI model. From there, manipulating open source code, Preymaker’s technologists would train the model to generate an AI interpolation of young Charles Barker’s face — iterating as they go. And finally, a team of skilled compositors would stitch that AI-generated face seamlessly onto the actor in the scene.
It sounded straightforward enough. But every tech-forward solution requires an agile team, adjusting and refining as they go. The first major hurdle was the quality of archival footage. Barkley’s early career was primarily documented in the Standard Definition NTSC era. Meaning that most available archival footage lacked the resolution needed to train an AI model, to produce broadcast footage in the High Definition standards of today. To compensate, Preymaker added another AI model to the workflow. This time, using advanced AI-upscaling to improve the resolution of the archival footage.
At Preymaker, the AI model was being trained every step of the way, using a combination of historical footage and fresh performance data from the actor. Since the younger Barkley would be sharing the screen with his real, present-day self, the illusion had to be flawless.
Post-production: Grounding AI-Generating footage in reality
The AI-generated footage wasn’t perfect. Some details, like Barkley’s ears and eyes , needed refining. Odd lighting or even a sliver of unusual motion would land the viewer in the uncanny valley, and that had to be avoided.
Preymaker’s technical team fine-tuned the AI output, manually correcting facial proportions and adjusting reactions. From there, the compositing team integrated the refined AI face onto the body double, blending shadows, skin tones, and textures to create a completely convincing performance. They enhanced realism through lighting and contouring, ensuring that the AI-generated face moved and reacted naturally in every shot. The final touches — subtle motion tracking refinements and fine-tuning Barkley’s expressions — made the transformation indistinguishable from reality.
Casting a young Charles Barkley
The success of this approach depended heavily on finding the right body double. The actor needed to closely match Barkley’s facial structure — eye spacing, jawline, and ear shape — so that the AI-generated face would blend seamlessly onto his head and body. Because the archival footage gave limited reference angles, Preymaker also used the footage of the lookalike actor to fill in these gaps. Getting more three dimensional data meant the AI model could better understand Barkley’s face from multiple viewpoints.
Beyond physical resemblance, the actor also had to embody Barkley’s signature mannerisms. From the way he smiled to the way he moved, every nuance had to feel distinctly authentic, and pass the test as believable when placed next to modern day Charles Barkley in the scene. The actor’s performance became a crucial reference, providing naturalistic movement data that helped the model track facial expressions and match body language accurately.
Filming Day
On shoot day, present-day Charles Barkley was seated on the couch beside his younger lookalike. Having a body double on set not only provided critical AI training data, it also allowed present-day Barkley to interact with a real scene partner — keeping the performance natural. Accurate eyelines and natural conversation cadence were essential to make the interaction believable.
On set, Preymaker’s VFX supervisors meticulously advised on lighting and camera setups to ensure optimal conditions for merging the AI-generated Charles Barker with the footage from studio. When working with star talent, time is precious, so it was crucial that the team was extensively prepared.
Crafting an accurate digital recreation
For a month, Preymaker collaborated with Wieden+Kenedy and director Aaron Stoller, to ensure that the AI-generated performance captured the essence of Barkley’s younger self — his distinct gestures, subtle micro-expressions, and overall likeness.
Iterating on the model, refining facial details, and ensuring natural expressions, the team achieved a hyper-realistic, believable performance for the young Charles Barkley character. From there, compositors seamlessly integrated the AI-generated face onto the body double, ensuring that every frame was natural and convincing.