By Millie Takaki

The centerpiece of an ambitious adidas campaign out of 180 Amsterdam is clearly the three-minute stop motion animation web film Adi Dassler, from which has been culled both cinema and broadcast commercials. The work introduces us to adidas founder Adi Dassler, taking us back in time to his 1920s workshop where it all began. The 1:3 scale recreation of the workshop set itself took 30 people over a month to build and became the perfect interactive backdrop for the Adi Dassler “Originals” website where visitors can spend time with Dassler. Shoes, trophies and Dassler himself are meticulously crafted in miniature and then brought to life using stop frame animation.

Mixed media elements abound in the piece, including archival footage of one of legendary sprinter Jesse Owens’ Gold Medal runs in the 1936 Olympics, and the German soccer team’s stunning upset over Hungary in the 1954 World Cup. Dassler designed running shoes for Owens and a special soled shoe which the German soccer players used to gain traction on a muddy field during the second half of their championship game.

Sans any experience in animation, Martin Krejci of Stink, London, became what on the surface seemed a curious directorial choice for Adi Dassler. But not for 180 executive producer Cedric Gairard who cited Krejci’s collaborative nature–not only with the agency and The Animation Studio, Prague, but with other Stink directors–namely James Brown, Ben Dawkins and Henry-Alex Rubin–who worked on other shorts in the adidas campaign.

All the directors came together and met with 180 and other contributors. “They [the directors] saw their projects in relation to the whole, helping them to do a better, more relevant job with the parts they were responsible for. This kind of sharing and collaboration with one another–and with us–helped to develop this campaign and make it possible….Having four directors in the same room enabled them to reach a collective understanding of their own work, the challenges and missions–and infused everyone with a feeling of teamwork. Stink became a partner with us in all of this.”

Gairard noted that Krejci’s role on the lead project helped to set a positive tone for everyone. The director embraced the challenge. “I’m not an animator at all,” he related. “This was my first experience in animation. For me, the biggest challenge was to make a story through animation about someone who really existed. So we could not afford to lose the connection to reality and authenticity. This was supposed to be very much like a documentary. We shot everything with real actors, found all the props, and modelmakers built an incredible set that had to be mathematically correct in terms of sizes and perspectives. What we shot with the real actor was matched frame by frame for the stop motion animation. It was painstaking work for the animation house but ultimately rewarding.”

However, Krejci isn’t clamoring for another stop frame animation job. “Now that I’ve had the experience, I think I’ll move on. But it was a discipline I every much wanted to explore. That’s my quest–to try to experience and do something new with each project.”

Free spirit
That spirit has been part of Krejci’s creative psyche from an early age. Born in Prague, he intuitively knew at age 11 that he wanted somehow to become a filmmaker. “I felt lucky that I knew what I wanted to do, though I didn’t know exactly why,” he said. “I bought a Super 8 camera and made my own little films.”

After completing his university studies in filmmaking, Krejci landed serendipitously in the ad world, directing some modest Czech market spots. He came up through Dawson Productions in Prague, directing what he described as “little films and commercials.” In 2004 Krejci got an Asian market commercial assignment for Ikea. The piece of tongue-in-cheek storytelling caught the attention of the industry at large, and specifically Stink managing director Daniel Bergmann.

Krejci explained that his decision to join Stink was easy, recalling that he felt simpatico with Bergmann and was confident that the shop would be supportive of him creatively. That initial impression, he said, has proven to be accurate as he’s been with Stink for nearly three years and counting, building a reel which is now beginning to catch the eye of the American marketplace. (Krejci is repped stateside by bicoastal Smuggler which has a deal with Stink to handle its roster in the U.S.)

That reel showcases a range that extends from some of his earliest work at Stink–the poignant, disturbing “Fight Club” for Amnesty International–to a visually arresting in-womb piece for Ford, a charming web film for Stella Artois which launched last November, and of course Adi Dassler.

“Fight Club” was well received and help put Krejci on the commercialmaking map in Europe. The spot thrusts us into what looks like a warehouse-sized boxing ring in which a male fighter is being brutally pummeled by his opponent. Hit repeatedly, the boxer struggles to stay upright but inevitably falls. But the landing place is not inevitable. Instead of falling to the canvas, he appears to land on a living room floor. Laid out, the boxer turns out to be a woman in regular clothes, her face bloodied and bruised. She looks up to see her husband standing over her. A message appears on screen that simply reads, “You can do something about it.” The spot is tagged with the Amnesty International logo as part of its campaign to stop violence against women, and is accompanied by a website address.

The Ford piece takes us from egg fertilization to the formation of life in the womb–actually different wombs as we see a baby human, elephant, dolphin and bear each taking shape. An on-screen message reads, “For the next generation,” which gives way to Ford Flexifuel, the next generation of fuel which has up to 75 percent less CO2 emissions.
And the Stella Artois film La Bouteille follows a beleaguered bar keeper’s journey through a village at night to get a bottle of the coveted brew for a female customer.

While the work is dramatically varied, there’s a common bond. “It really doesn’t mater what the style is or what technology you use–live-action or stop frame animation,” said Krejci. “I am drawn to projects that have the potential for storytelling. You use the tools to express feelings and emotions, and to tell a story. I seek out the challenge to do justice to the narrative.”

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