With an ancient temple in the background, Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps plunges off a Grecian cliff and into the Mediterranean Sea. Thus begins Visa USA’s "Lap" out of BBDO New York, directed by Lance Acord of Park Pictures, New York.
As night falls, Phelps has swum out into the middle of the ocean, and is showing no signs of fatigue. Under a velvety night sky, he passes a submerging whale. Next, we see him stroke pass a small tropical island with the sun rising behind it. He continues to swim vigorously beside a cruise ship and eventually ends up under the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, paddling into New York Harbor. We see him swimming toward the Statue of Liberty, with the New York City skyline in the distance.
When Phelps finally reaches the base of Lady Liberty, he touches the wall and gasps, "One"—indicating the number of laps he has just done. Then he turns to swim away from the landmark and back across the Atlantic.
A voiceover remarks, "How do you get to the Athens 2004 Olympic Games? Practice—or, you can use Visa, the only card accepted at this summer’s Olympic Games." The spot closes with shots of a Visa card, and an end tag stating, "Proud sponsor of the Olympic Games."
PERFECT MATCH
With the client requesting a spot that would feature Phelps, associate creative director/art director Tim Bayne said he wanted to showcase the athlete’s ability. "We wanted to demonstrate what a bad ass he was in a simple way," he explained. "The idea of using the Atlantic Ocean as a lap pool just got that point across pretty clearly." Lauren Connolly was associate creative director/ copywriter on the spot.
Although Phelps appears to be swimming off the coast of Greece and in New York Harbor, he isn’t actually in these places at all. Instead, he was filmed swimming in a pool at Florida International University, Miami, and off the coast of Miami. A blue screen in the pool area allowed the team at Digital Domain, Venice, Calif., to composite Phelps into the footage later.
Not wanting to interrupt the athlete’s Olympic training schedule, Acord, who also served as DP on the spot, shot film at the various locations we see in the commercial with the intention of putting Phelps in during post. Body double Sean Foley was used on location in Hydra and Sunio, Greece; New York; and Miami. "Finding Sean opened the door on how we could shoot this thing because he was a really convincing double who was incredibly athletic himself and had no fear about getting in the water," Acord related, adding, "He swam in some of the most adverse conditions."
The most perilous circumstances were in New York Harbor, where Acord estimated the water temperature at 40 degrees. Foley—who actually swam toward Battery Park in Lower Manhattan since boats are not allowed near the Statue of Liberty—could only swim for brief periods in the cold water, which increased the difficulty of the post process. "We had to keep setting up the cameras, getting him warm, getting him back in there," Digital Domain producer Stephanie Gilgar recalled. "Because the water was so different from shot to shot, it was a bit of a challenge to make sure that they all blended together perfectly."
Some of the effects were, however, achieved in-camera. Phelps really did swim past the little tropical island, and Foley did actually swim near the huge cruise liner, unbeknownst to those piloting the large ship. For Bayne, it was one of the most exciting points in the shoot. "We had all of the underwater cameramen set up, but the ship [unexpectedly] took a right turn away from us heading towards the Caribbean, so we had to chase it," he reported. "We had to get in front of the ship, and we were literally maybe five hundred yards off the side of this thing. We would throw [Foley] in and film, and then get him back and try to get in front of the ship again. It was amazing; it was really quite an experience."
On why the agency chose Acord to helm the project, agency senior producer Winslow Dennis cited admiration of adidas’ "Laila," which the director helmed through TBWA Worldwide, New York. For that commercial, Acord combined stock footage of a young Muhammad Ali and live action of his boxer daughter Laila Ali, to show them trading punches in the ring.
Shooting his own background plates in "Lap" distinguished this project from the adidas spot, Acord shared, but both required compositing, which made it necessary for visual effects supervisor Fred Raimondi to be on location with the director. "Because we were careful with the lineups and the water conditions and the lighting, in the end, some of the things went together a lot easier than we thought they would," Acord said. "Even just in a rough Avid composite they looked incredibly convincing."
