Combine the daring moves of a real-life Spider-Man with a sweet story of young love, add French flavor, an old-school, cinematic feel and a bizarre humorous twist, and you get "Young Love," a fresh and original new spot for Nike Presto shoes created by Wieden+ Kennedy (W+K), Portland, Ore., and directed by Traktor of bicoastal/international Partizan.
While we typically see mega-stars like Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods in ads touting Nike footwear, the :30 "Young Love"—as well as the two other spots in the Nike Presto campaign—cast members of Le Parkour in featured roles. Based in France, the group of urban acrobats celebrates the art of movement and is of the mind that nothing is an obstacle and has essentially turned the city of Paris into a jungle gym: fearlessly scaling walls, leaping off roofs and climbing—or sometimes descending—buildings.
Le Parkour’s philosophy, creativity and spirit caught the attention of Nike and the creatives at W+K. "We wanted to give the Nike Presto ads a different voice and a different tone than some of the more traditional competitive athletic directions a lot of other Nike brands go to," explained W+K art director Danielle Flagg. "We wanted to talk about movement, expressiveness and individuality. Le Parkour embodied that."
David Belle, the founder of Le Parkour, plays the lovestruck young man in "Young Love." Shot at a housing complex in Paris, the ad opens with a title card that reads: Premier Amour. Below a black caption box appears with the English translation: Young Love.
Cut to a shot of Belle, a ruggedly handsome, muscular guy with tattoos and a closely-shorn head, standing on a balcony with a beautiful woman. In the background, we hear a French-speaking narrator waxing poetic about their love. Suddenly, the woman reaches her arm over the balcony and drops her barrette. A narrator speaking English breaks in to translate for us: "He is in love. Like that he gets it." Meanwhile, we see the chivalrous young man leap over the edge of the balcony, drop to the ledge of the balcony below—holding onto it with his fingers—before dropping to another balcony and another like a monkey, navigating four stories before ultimately landing on the ground. He retrieves the barrette and returns it to the girl.
Clearly testing his love, the woman then drops her handbag over the ledge. Her beau performs the dangerous round-trip stunt again as the French narrator—who hardly stops to take a breath—drones on. Once again, the English narrator breaks in to share minimal information. In a clipped tone, he says: "She drops her handbag. He gets her handbag."
As the young man returns the lady’s handbag, an elderly man on a lower balcony—who is obviously not impressed by the stunt—scolds him.
Determined to test her admirer yet again, the woman unexpectedly whips out her dentures—yes, her dentures—and lets them drop to the ground below. It’s a turn-off for our hero who shoots her a disapproving look and steps away from her.
Cut to the old man below: He picks up the dentures, pops them into his mouth and smiles into the camera. The world "presto," the Nike swoosh and "nike-presto.com" appear next to him on the screen. End of story.
While Belle’s moves—as well as those of other Le Parkour members featured in spots titled "Angry Chicken" and "Scary Cat"—are simply amazing to witness, W+K copywriter Mike Byrne noted, "We wanted the moves to fit into real stories. The moves are interesting. But if you don’t have a context for them, you’re just making highlight reels. And there are so many commercials out there that are just highlight reels."
Directing collective Traktor was of the same mind, according to Byrne, and its members were hired to helm the campaign—which was DP’d by Harris Savides—for that reason as well as their sense of humor. Speaking on behalf of Traktor, one of its members, Ole—who, for interviews, has adopted a mono-moniker sans his surname in keeping with the team’s penchant for mystery—pointed out, "The scripts were so magnificently twisted that we didn’t dare mess with them."
After scouting Paris for three days, it was decided that "Young Love" would be shot at a housing complex familiar to Belle. "We had a hard time getting that location because the residents of that community don’t like Le Parkour," Byrne related. "They think they’re foolish kids."
But Byrne and Flagg saw Belle and his colleagues as awe-inspiring athletes who train hard to achieve the strength and dexterity required to do what they do. Still, the creatives—as well as Ole—admitted it wasn’t easy watching them perform. "It was torture for out battled spleens to watch the athletes hurtle through the air with no safety nets," Ole said.
That’s right. Belle—and the other Le Parkour members featured in the spots—did their stunts sans safety nets or ropes. Not that they weren’t given the option. "We were like, ‘Hey, can we put some safety precautions here, and Belle was like ‘No, that wouldn’t be true to what we do,’ " Byrne said.
While there was likely a lot of nail-biting on the set, no one was injured during the shoot.
When it came to the post/visual effects aspect of the job, W+K turned to London-based The Moving Picture Company—"Jean Clement-Soret, the colorist, was fantastic," Flagg stressed—to help achieve the film’s old-school look. If you didn’t know any better, you might think the "Young Love" spot was shot back in the 1980s. "The goal was to give the spot a timelessness," Byrne said. "You don’t really know if it was shot yesterday or 15 years ago."
That look ads to the spot’s quirky appeal as do the French and English voiceovers. Explaining his decision to go that route, Byrne said, "I just thought it would be funny to have the French guy going on and on and on and the English guy just telling you what you need to know."
The music featured in "Young Love" is a remake of a tune called "Caprichosa," which was originally recorded by legendary tango musician Carlos Gardel. Diego Grimblat of Diego Grumblat Música, Buenos Aires, re-recorded the song, while Martin Menzel served as engineer.
"We settled on that song because it wasn’t your typical love song," Byrne said. "There is a sadness to it which we felt bumped up the unexpected situation."
In the end, all of these wildly diverse and carefully crafted ingredients result in what Byrne describes as a "bizarre, quirky spot," and he credits Nike with being willing to take a leap of faith—so to speak. "When we were in France shooting this, I turned to the Nike guys and said, ‘I can’t believe you’re letting us shoot this,’" Byrne shared. "It was cool that they allowed us to do this."
