Director Sean Dunne, known for his documentary shorts, has taken that acumen into the advertising marketplace, putting the web on ice with his three-part profile of young National Hockey League (NHL) star Steven Stamkos, center for the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Dunne, whose spotmaking home is bicoastal Nonfiction Unlimited, took on the Nike Canada project for Wieden+Kennedy, New York. The trio of online shorts was produced by Toronto house Suneeva.
In the first installment, Road to Boom: Moment 1, Dunne delves into Stamkos’ childhood, showing footage of the then 18-year-old Canadian hockey prodigy being selected as the first pick in the 2008 NHL draft. This gives way to his mother’s recollections about him, including his desire as a young boy to not be read to at night–at least not to have books read to him. Instead she remembered that her son wanted her to read to him the bio and stat info on the backs of hockey trading cards. “So now it’s kind of neat that his face is on one of those cards,” she observed.
Other childhood experiences include a makeshift rink in the carpeted basement of the family’s home as we see a pre-school aged Stamkos shooting toy pucks into a net. Another scene is of the now adult Stamkos visiting the local frozen over pond, a venue that sparked his love of hockey and played host to many of his pick-up games and practices as a child.
The recollections continue as we see Stamkos going through his grueling training regimen. Though only a minute long, Moment 1 digs deeper than the typical athlete profile, which is commonly heavy on the cliches and light on insights into the player’s life, heart and psyche.
Homespun approach Dunne found it advantageous to be back in the Toronto house where Stamkos grew up and still lives during the offseason as a 20 year old.
“He is already quite media savvy from his time in the NHL and has all the pat answers that athletes are supposed to have,” said Dunne. “But at home, you’re less likely to get those kinds of canned answers, the key being to put him with the people who see through all that, the people who know him best. That’s my way of cutting through the extraneous and getting to know someone. With his mom, we got the story about reading the hockey cards at bedtime–something we would have never gotten if it were just me alone with Steven. And having him with these people gets him to open up and be more genuine. It was the best way to start the series of films because it led to his letting us more into his world and into what moves him.”
Dunne also had to make sure that the three web shorts came together as an overall story while at the same time each had to stand alone to reflect a portion of Stamkos’ life.
Docu pedigree Dunne, who is profiled in our Up-And-Coming Directors feature story in the Directors Series section of this issue, has a short film documentary pedigree that includes The Archive, Man in Van, and The Bowler.
The Nike Canada campaign represents his first major foray into the ad arena and now assorted spot storyboards are coming into Nonfiction Unlimited for him. He attributes the increased bidding activity to the impact a job from a well regarded creative agency like Wieden+Kennedy can have on one’s career. Another contributing factor is how the industry itself has evolved with web content becoming a viable branding vehicle. Dunne said that with this dynamic in play, his documentary short background might be becoming more valued by the creative community.
“Web films are getting to be more of a calling card for a brand, and that can only help me given my experience with online short films,” the director observed.
