“When I approach a new media project I try to cover as much material with as many different types of recording equipment as possible. The nice thing about the way a new media project unfolds is it’s a continually evolving message. So I always feel like when you go to a set you have an opportunity–get everything you can possibly get. Leave some tread on the pavement when you go, and that’s really all that should be left,” said Thor Raxlen, director/creative director Guerilla FX, New York. Raxlen certainly brought this philosophy to the table for the Nike ZOOM campaign, “Quick is Deadly,” developed by Wieden+Kennedy, Portland, Ore., in partnership with R/GA New York. He filmed 10 of the world’s fastest athletes and gathered enough footage for more than 400 :24 to :60 webisodes that are airing on Nike.com. Guerilla FX also completed the editing and effects. “It’s one of the projects in the last several years I’m just really, really proud of. Our team of editors, Linda Peters and Jason Yantz, cut like 450 clips in a couple of months. They went without a lot of sleep,” Raxlen says with a laugh.
The goal of the campaign was to show the deadly power and precision of being quick in a way that hadn’t been done before, while showcasing Nike ZOOM as the shoe that makes someone quicker. The campaign slogan is simply “Quick is Deadly.” The subtext of the project was to express that you could also become quicker if you train like world class athletes. “So we would shoot the athletes doing whatever their signature move was. And then we would shoot the different kind of training exercises that they would do to help them get quicker and talk to them about the mental aspect of quickness,” explained Raxlen.
To show off the hyper quick signature moves, the team decided to capture them in slow motion. To really deconstruct each one, Raxlen used the Phantom high-speed digital camera that shoots in HD at 1,000 frames per second. Additional cameras with different frame rates were used including an Arias R3 super 16 mm camera that shoots film at about 150 frames per second, or 35mm film and HD cameras at 60 frames and 30 frames per second. Time re-mapping was executed in After Effects and the webisodes were finished on Final Cut Pro with a Kona HD card.
Raxlen also shot the athletes from multiple angles to achieve a true study of the motion. “When you look at these sports at that time [1,000 frames per second], it becomes ballet. And that to me is what was so cool and amazing,” he said.
To give an idea of the level of quality of the webisodes, Nike liked the footage of Olympic Gold Medallist Sanya Richards bursting out of the running blocks so much that they turned it into a TV spot. “You could cut 30 spots out of all this footage. It’s all above broadcast quality. It’s super crisp and beautiful. That was definitely one of the things that Marcelino Alvarez, senior producer at W+K, and I said. Let’s do this to that level. A lot of people say, ‘We are shooting for the web so it doesn’t matter. It does matter. To do the project and not go the extra mile doesn’t make sense.”
W+K senior producer Darren Himebrook gave kudos to Raxlen for being able keep his head wrapped around all the things that needed to be captured and for being able to cut and deliver the footage while maintaining quality across all of it. “Having worked with Thor previously he’s always come through. He’s always been a great team member,” said Himebrook.
Speaking of teamwork Alvarez added that one of the things that worked well during the project was having an integrated production approach with the print teams to capture content on set. “That’s another one of those places where working with someone like Thor shone. He is able to work with an agency, client and another production happening less than 50 feet away and exceed everyone’s expectations.”
Interactive TV
The website is being promoted through banner ads and a TV spot. Directed by Michael Mann via Alturas Films, Santa Monica, the spot features San Diego Chargers All-Pro running back Ladainian Tomlinson mapping out a plan to score before a play begins. Visual effects were done by Asylum. The campaign also consists of an interactive TV component supported by interactive TV company Ensequence.
When a DISH Network customer sees the ad, they are invited to become Tomlinson. They are put into the commercial, allowing them to learn more about the Nike ZOOM shoe through interactive callouts, watch footage of Tomlinson and train with him, test their quickness by playing a game and find local stores that sell the shoe, “The expansive amount of content we captured for the web allowed us to say, ‘This interactive TV application could really be a neat extension of that content. I think historically in the United States it hasn’t been a platform that has been really used or tested. So Nike was really pushing new ground in this space,” Alvarez said. “We are excited to have an opportunity to be part of that initial push in this country.”
