Running has gone hi-tech with the Nike + iPod Sport Kit. The system has runners inserting a chip into a special Nike shoe. That chip beams data to an iPod Nano, which records the time, distance, pace and calories burned in real time as one runs.
After each run, the Nano can be docked and the information from a run can be uploaded to a server so that a runner can actually chart his progress.
That’s a rather straightforward and dry description of a breakthrough process, isn’t it? Actually, it is exactly the kind of passionless talk Mekanism, San Francisco, sought to avoid when creating and producing a new spot promoting the Nike + iPod. “The challenge was to convey [all that information] in a visceral way,” according to director/creative director Tommy Means of Mekanism. “We wanted to explain it in a way that got people fired up.”
And they succeeded. You really can’t help but get fired up after watching the :60 “Motivation.” Directed by Means, the spot finds a runner all decked out in his running gear sitting on a couch in his living room. He is dressed and ready to go but not feeling motivated. Who among us hasn’t been in that situation?
But he finally gets up, turns on his iPod (choosing to listen to OK Go’s power pop track “Here It Goes Again” for the U.S. version of the spot, which is also airing in Asia and Australia) and starts running on an enormous treadmill placed in front of projection screens.
As he runs, we see him pass through a suburban neighborhood with white picket fences. He picks up speed on the run and literally breaks through walls as he hits new personal bests. Each time he breaks through a wall, the scenery changes–along the way, we see him running through a city financial district and blazing across a beach. (All of this scenery was shot in and around San Francisco on 16mm.)
“What I wanted to try to convey is this journey that you take both geographically and inside your head when you run,” Means explained. “When I run, I like to listen to music and look at stuff, and it takes me away. It takes me to this other place, and I wanted to try to convey that sense of escapism.”
Means does convey that journey rather beautifully in this artfully rendered piece of advertising.
According to the director, the spot was inspired by and based on an act from Fuerza Bruta, a spectacular stage show with aerial and acrobatic stunts, including one that finds a man in a business suit running on a giant treadmill and breaking through a wall.
“We saw the kernel of an idea there,” Means said, “and we took it and pitched it to Nike.”
Argentinian cowboy Nike gave the go ahead, and Mekanism collaborated with Fuerza Bruta creative director Diqui James, who is credited as theatrical creative director on this job, to make “Motivation.” Describing James as “a wild renegade Argentinian creative cowboy,” Means said, “You can tell that this is his art. It’s something that although when you watch it you’re not exactly sure what it means, it means something very, very important to him.”
So was James nervous about Mekanism toying with his idea? “There was definitely a combination of flattery and fear,” Means acknowledged. “When an artist sees his vision tweaked, there is a little bit of fear going into it.
“But he was so open and so collaborative and so excited about the whole thing in general that by the time we got into the process he was definitely leading the charge.”
On the treadmill Means and a crew that included DP Jim Frohna and motion design director Emmett Feldman shot “Motivation” on a soundstage just outside Buenos Aires, using a treadmill from Fuerza Bruta and relying on theatrical rather than film style lighting.
Ninety-five percent of the action was caught in-camera. “Because it was based on a theater show where they actually had a giant treadmill and the walls, we thought, ‘Instead of replicating that, let’s actually shoot it like it was a theater production and do it in-camera,’ ” said Mekanism’s Jason Harris, who served the functions of creative director, copywriter and executive producer.
It was a rather complex two-camera production that found Means leading a Spanish-speaking crew of 150 over the course of the six-day shoot.
A performer from Fuerza Bruta was cast in the role of the runner, and while he routinely performs the “breaking through the wall” stunt in the show, there remained an element of danger. After all, the steel-framed walls used for the stunt are made of sheetrock and weigh 300 pounds apiece. They are scored to help the actor make the break, but still….
Remarkably, the guy did the stunt sans a harness and emerged unscathed.
Once the shoot wrapped, it was back to the United States where the team at Radium, San Francisco, including Simon Mowry, Inferno artist/creative director/colorist, got to work. While Means got most everything in-camera, he did rely on Radium to composite an iPod interface onto one of the walls the runner jumped through among other things.
Editor Alan Chimenti cut the spot. “He has the patience of Job,” Means said laughing. “He was a rock during the whole post production process. It probably lasted ten days or so, and it was probably ten straight days of all-nighters. We were all leaning on Alan, he was holding everybody up.”
