In a web spot directed by Dutch director Sven Super of Amsterdam-based Christel Palace for EA Sports’ FIFA 08, two gamers approach football superstar Ronaldinho while he is barbecuing at a birthday party in a samba hall. With a makeshift monitor and a console and a healthy dose of confidence, they challenge him to replicate one of the goals his virtual counterpart makes in the video game. He not only accepts the challenge but delivers, dazzling onlookers and the gamers. Two additional web spots and three TV spots make up the “Can You FIFA 08” campaign created by Wieden + Kennedy Amsterdam.
“A lot of sporting titles leverage the fact that famous athletes inform the creation of their game,” said Eric Quennoy, creative director at W+K. “The breakthrough for us was when we decided to flip that on its head. Instead we wanted the game to inform how the athletes play. Here we want to say the game has reached such a level that it can inform the athletes. It’s the idea of gamers creating spectacular goals scored by Ronaldinho or Franck Ribery or Wayne Rooney and then going up to the athletes themselves and saying, ‘Hey can you do something as good as what we’ve created using your ingame character.”
Hence the line, Can You FIFA 08?
In the other web spots, the gamers challenge Rooney while he is hitting golf balls with Sergio Ramos, and they approach Ribery and Miroslav Klose while they are getting suits fitted at a high-end tailor. Thirty-second TV spots feature the front end of the challenge and give viewers a feel for the concept. Then they are asked to visit www.canyoufifa08.com and see the 90-second web spots to determine whether or not the athletes successfully replicated the goals simulated by their virtual conterparts. To make the web experience more engaging, there are hot spots embedded in the web spots that visitors can click on to see additional behind-the- scenes footage of the athletes. The website also features interactive games and FIFA 08 tutorials.
“With the TV spots we wanted to create such a level of suspense that viewers really wanted to know if the athletes could pull off the moves the gamers scored themselves and then drive them to the website,” said Quennoy, adding that in both the TV and web spots he really wanted audiences to feel like they were a fly on the wall, observing every suspenseful moment.
To achieve that aesthetic the creative team tapped Super, who they had never worked with before. Quennoy said it was difficult to get a director to commit a month to the project. It was necessary to commit to that big of a window of time because the athletes were noncommital about the dates they could participate in the shoot. W+K producer Olivier Klonhammer suggested Christel Palace and the rest was “serendipity,” according to Quennoy. “Sven is just a rock star. His film is absolutely beautiful. He is also the nicest, sweetest, most collaborative guy in the world. And having him based locally meant that we could sit down with him every night and really nut out the scripts. So many times you work with directors who you only meet a couple of days before the pre-pro, and then you’re straight into the shoot. In this case we created a tremendous rapport with him and by the time we were shooting we were all completely and utterly on the same page.
“I’ve never had such a level of collaboration before. It was great. I would shoot with him anytime. He’s brilliant.”
All of the footage for the TV and web spots was shot using Kodak 16mm film to give it a gritty feel. Super had three Arri SR3 cameras rolling at the same time. “Sven’s work has a cinematic feel to it. He captures small movements and gestures and nothing is overplayed,” he said.
While the spots capture genuine reactions and little moments when the athletes are off their guard, the additional web footage shows tender moments behind the scenes. For instance, the creatives put a ball in a chair wearing glasses and had the ball interview the athletes. They also captured one of the art directors dressing up in a bunny suit and stealing Ramos’ golf cart as he is preparing for a putt.
“If you are a fan of the game and these athletes, you always like to see this sort of stuff,” said Quennoy.
It was not all fun and games on set though, he admitted, explaining that this was one of the most intense shoots he’s ever done. It took place across three countries–Czech Republic, the U.K. and Brazil. The locations for the Rooney and Ronaldinho shoots were changed at the last minute because it wouldn’t stop raining. For example the original concept had Ronaldinho barbecuing in the backyard of a mansion that was supposed to be his house. Two days before the shoot they found an old samba hall and made changes accordingly.
“It took a lot of bravery on the part of the client,” said Quennoy. “Everyone chipped in and did the right thing and we pulled it off. The final shot of that day is the one at the end of the Ronaldinho spot where you see everyone piled in. If you extend that film about 10 seconds later you would have seen me and Sven running in and hugging Ronaldinho. It was unbridled joy that we pulled the thing off.
“What was rewarding for me personally was watching everyone–the agency, client, production company–with their noses in the same direction. It’s rare you manage to have that happen. I think that worked reall well and I think the films look good because of that.”
In addition to Quennoy, “Can You FIFA 08?” was created by interactive CD Joakim Borgström, with copywriter Mikey Farr and art director Craig Melchiano.
Raoul Peck Resurrects A Once-Forgotten Anti-Apartheid Photographer In “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found”
When the photographer Ernest Cole died in 1990 at the age of 49 from pancreatic cancer at a Manhattan hospital, his death was little noted.
Cole, one of the most important chroniclers of apartheid-era South Africa, was by then mostly forgotten and penniless. Banned by his native country after the publication of his pioneering photography book "House of Bondage," Cole had emigrated in 1966 to the United States. But his life in exile gradually disintegrated into intermittent homelessness. A six-paragraph obituary in The New York Times ran alongside a list of death notices.
But Cole receives a vibrant and stirring resurrection in Raoul Peck's new film "Ernest Cole: Lost and Found," narrated in Cole's own words and voiced by LaKeith Stanfield. The film, which opens in theaters Friday, is laced throughout with Cole's photographs, many of them not before seen publicly.
As he did in his Oscar-nominated James Baldwin documentary "I Am Not Your Negro," the Haitian-born Peck shares screenwriting credit with his subject. "Ernest Cole: Lost and Found" is drawn from Cole's own writings. In words and images, Peck brings the tragic story of Cole to vivid life, reopening the lens through which Cole so perceptively saw injustice and humanity.
"Film is a political tool for me," Peck said in a recent interview over lunch in Manhattan. "My job is to go to the widest audience possible and try to give them something to help them understand where they are, what they are doing, what role they are playing. It's about my fight today. I don't care about the past."
"Ernest Cole: Lost and Found" is a movie layered with meaning that goes beyond Cole's work. It asks questions not just about the societies Cole documented but of how he was treated as an artist,... Read More