To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Nike Air Force shoe, the company introduced Nike Air Force 25, which it is promoting with a multimedia campaign that includes a long form animated :45 video from R/GA/New York and Stardust Studios, a bicoastal design-animation studio.
“25 Years of Force” provides an alluring history of modern basketball featuring shots of Charles Barkley and other NBA stars taken from product photography from the past, with narration by hip-hop star Rakim.
“The piece brings the user into the Barkley era, the Sheed era and up through the current face of the game, Amare Stoudamire,” said Joseph Cartman, R/GA’s associate creative director. “It lands users into an interactive time line, where they can explore each individual Force player through rare coach/player interviews, player commentaries and on-screen photography.”
Justin Blyth, Stardust’s art director, said “Nike gave us old print ads from the ’80s and we placed the cut-outs in a 3D environment to animate the neon shapes. We didn’t have footage and had to bring it to life from the stills. All camera moves were done in 3D programs exported with camera data into After Effects.”
In one scene, a poster of Charles Barkley had a picture of smoke, “so we cut it out and put live action smoke behind him,” Blyth said. “It brings it to life without altering the ad at all.”
As the video segues from the ’90s to the current era there is a transition of three sections of hardwood floor that slide out to reveal a new floor with players on it. “We used still photos of players from the modern era and placed them in different positions of the 3D environment and added large blocks of 3D type,” Blyth said. “We also added lighting from the sky to bring it home and make it rugged.”
The spot combines colorful animation and graphic action shots of basketball super stars with a hip-hop beat. The Nike Force campaign began in December and will continue through this summer, Cartman said. The video plays exclusively at Nikebasketball.com.
DGA Spot Nominees: Lance Acord, Kim Gehrig, Tim Heidecker & Eric Wareheim, Andreas Nilsson, Ivan Zacharias
This year’s field of nominees for the Directors Guild of America (DGA) Award recognizing Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Commercials consists of a filmmaker who’s won the honor each of the last two years, another past winner, a five-time nominee, a helmer who’s just picked up his second career nod, and a duo garnering their very first Guild nomination. The latter is the directorial team of Tim Heidecker & Eric Wareheim of production house PRETTYBIRD. The director now going for her third consecutive DGA Award win is Kim Gehrig of Somesuch. The other past winner is Andreas Nilsson of Biscuit Filmworks. Nilsson won the honor in 2016 and now has three career nominations. Lance Acord of Park Pictures just earned his fifth career DGA Award nomination in the commercials category--his four prior nods coming in 2004, 2012, 2013 and 2017. And scoring his second career DGA nod is Ivan Zacharias of SMUGGLER who was previously nominated in 2023. The work Gehrig earned her third straight nomination on the strength of three entries: SiriusXM’s “A Life in Sound” for agency Uncommon; Nike’s “Am I A Bad Person?” for Wieden+Kennedy, and the Apple client-direct spot titled “Find Your Friends.” Nilsson’s latest nomination came for Hennessy’s “Board Game” out of Wieden+Kennedy London; Andrex’s “First Office Poo” for FCB London; the client-direct Apple spot “One More”; and Virgin Media’s “Whizzer” for VCCP London. Acord’s fifth career nod is for Volkswagen’s “An American Love Story” out of agency Johannes Leonardo. Zacharias’ second career nomination is for Apple’s “Flock” out of TBWAMedia Arts Lab. And the duo of Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim nabbed their first... Read More