LBB: Mastering the Swing: Fellow LA’s Innovative Approach to the Dynamic World of Golf

Marcelo Petrella and Vincent Wauters tell LBB’s April Summers how the production company is expertly catering to the growing demand for high end golf advertising

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Los Angeles has slowly but surely become one of the epicentres of golf. Already a global hub of entertainment, fashion and sport, it makes sense that the sport's recent uptick in popularity has seen the game become firmly integrated with the city. And what an uptick it's been – one in seven Americans reportedly played golf in 2022, resulting in $101.7 billion in direct economic impact, up 20% from 2016. While the pandemic may have been responsible for the initial resurgence, growth opportunities for the golf market continue to expand exponentially with a reported 9.6% more golf played by North Americans in 2022 than the previous year. 

An activity both outdoorsy and sociable in nature, golf aligns perfectly with the city’s lifestyle and culture. The beautiful weather and vast range of golf courses - from the grandeur of The Los Angeles Country Club; to small, charming neighbourhood courses - has seen Angelenos flock to the sport, drawn to the accessibility of a round of golf followed by dinner or shopping in the same neighbourhood. This unique experience has seen LA transition into a natural spot for the business and exposure of the sport. 

Fellow LA co-owners, Marcelo Petrella and Vincent Wauters - who, between them cover a range of expertise from live action production, motion graphics, animation, VFX, CG, and creative production - have worked with golf brands since the early 2000s. Having spent the last decade producing high end live action, design and VFX, Marcelo and Vincent’s skills have been put to good use by numerous collaborations with major golf brands such as Callaway, Under Armour, Honma and TaylorMade. 

“I first worked on the launch of a new Driver for TaylorMade Golf back in 2008,” Marcelo tells me. “It was of a series of spots highlighting the new tech at that time which allowed the player to ‘tweak’ the loft of their club with a simple adjustment.” Noting the recent surge of interest in the sport, Fellow LA stay attuned to the immense advancements in the industry, proactively keeping their finger on the pulse. Working with dozens of golf pros and monitoring the new developments in golf products and technology, the duo also began playing the sport themselves, to understand the nuances of the game and how to best capture that on camera.

“Over the last decade the tech has continuously evolved and understanding the features as golfers, and figuring out what they can change or bring in our game, is crucial to carrying a brand’s message in a way that makes sense to the audience of these spots,” says Vincent, who heads up CG and VFX at Fellow LA. “Golf is rhythmically very suitable to advertising. It alternates slower moments of awe and immersion in a beautiful environment, concentration, observation, with the more intense, fast and powerful moments of the golf swing and strike. This is the perfect contrast in rhythm and scale. It can be fun and social as a group, but it can also be epic and breath-taking, like the one golfer against a massive landscape of nature and sky, allowing for a wide range of possible scripts and execution.”

Navigating the Green

With golf equipment and apparel reporting enormous growth since 2020, Fellow LA’s long-term collaborators, Callaway, have recorded sales up 13% year-on-year. Reflecting on their long-standing partnership with the brand and their creative agency, Taco Truck Creative, Marcelo explains how easy access to the sport plays a part in golf’s mainstream popularity. “This uprising in the industry feels like it is just starting. The new viewership. The new leagues. The new ‘gamification’ of the sport with team leagues and TopGolf. The fashion appeal. I think golf is going to infiltrate more and more of the mainstream, opening up lots of opportunities in the space.”

As the landscape continues to expand, golf brands like Callaway rely on Fellow LA’s experience in the market and specialist expertise to inform the craft, more than ever. “We have an incredibly tight relationship with Callaway and their agency, Taco Truck Creative,” Marcelo reveals. “Through the years we have received amazing feedback from not only the results and craft of our work, but most importantly, our process. We strive to deliver the best results, and the crew at Taco Truck and Callaway always push us to reinvent. From highspeed to FPV drones, from stage shoots with tabletop setups to projection backdrops shot in the golf course clubhouse, from night shoots in a freezing golf course with smoke and lights to a shoot in our parking lot that later was rotoscoped frame by frame in animation, we keep experimenting outside of the usual formula.”

Driving Success 

Carrying out constant research and development to stay ahead of new tech for production, design and VFX is a crucial aspect of Fellow LA’s craft.. With every spot needing a little bit of everything - technology new and old - the pair remain clued up on the best tools available. “In our experience, spots may require a high speed camera, a steadicam, or a motorised arm, or sometimes rigged to a golf cart! Our ability to decipher the needs of a golfing spot allows us to get ahead of things.”

And, on the VFX and CG side of things, Vincent stays in-the-know when it comes to the realms of both traditional and future-focused software. “We’ve trained AI models to automatically remove the inevitable marks and divots on golf courses, based on the amount of golf content we produced and cleaned up already,” he reveals. “In the realms of FX, we always test out the latest features to simulate fire, smoke, liquids, rigid bodies, destructions, so we can come up with interesting options for our clients when it comes to visualising the making of the latest AI generated club face, or the latest golf urethane ball core.”

The dynamic duo view the golf market in LA as a self-sustaining one: not only do locals want to participate in the sport, but the city also happens to have the best talents and crew to craft, shoot and distribute the necessary advertising and marketing materials. “We can be a key partner for agencies and brands in this space, bringing a wealth of knowledge in crafting content for the golf industry from start to finish.” Based out of El Segundo, Fellow LA remains in prime position to tap into the needs of Los Angeles’ golfers and marketers alike.