With this beautifully executed spec commercial for Nike, director Dominic Lahiff conveys the pivotal role the brand has played in sports history - past, present, and future.
Read on, for the full story from the director:
"Both spots were written by me and were shot on a low-budget using the same crew who are all friends of mine. The first spot- Past Present Future- was an idea I had whilst watching the movie Marathon Man- to link three generations of Nike athletes through the framing device of a single race. In order to create the idea of fluidity, continuity and passage of time I knew that the camera had to move in tandem with its subject- All the practical footage was shot from a motorbike and sidecar- rig running along the track parallel to the athlete.
"Beginning with an actor playing Steve Prefontaine- Nike's first sponsored athlete- I found out a 30 year-old but still functional pair of Nike track shoes on e-bay and then recreated the rest of his look using old photographs and movie references. The actor portraying Prefontaine- Emanuele Ancorini- was an active participant in this process growing the correct mustache and sideburns and allowing me to color his hair with golden paint. I kept the framing on this past section tight by using long-lenses in order to highlight the individual runner and the small scale of Nike's origins in Beaverton Oregon. The green and gold color scheme was created both in-camera by my highly-talented dp- Chris J Lytwyn-and in post. Chris and I modeled the look after a famous book of William Eggleston photographs from the 70s. Finally in order to really emphasize the idea that this section was taking place in the past film scratches, grain and dust were added in After Effects.
"The present day section features Gayson Kewley playing a modern day Nike Olympian victor. I was able to buy the exact track spikes which Nike sprinters wore in the last Olympics. The running singlet was a little more difficult as these are made exclusively for the Olympic team and are not commercially available. However I was lucky enough to know a very- skilled costume designer- Liza Marzolf- who constructed me an exact replica for only $60.00!!. The framing on this section was a little wider to indicate the extent of Nike's growth and their influence on the world stage. Lacking a budget for extras I had hoped to throw the audience sections of the stadium into darkness using only flashbulbs to suggest a packed crowd. However when we arrived at the location we discovered the practical lighting was not controllable to this degree. It was at this point my VFX artist G M D THREE came to the rescue painstakingly rotoscoping each frame of the moving footage and replacing the empty stadium with a virtual audience complete with individually nuanced crowd members. The flashbulb guns we had shot were augmented to become larger explosions of light which helped to transition from present to future.
"The future section was created entirely through CGI. A detailed model of a cyborg-athlete was modeled using numerous references from movies, Japanese art and comic books. This was them painstakingly animated frame-by-frame using a combination of Gayson's running cycle ,videos from Getty Images and a variety of stills. Camera positions and movements, an intricate futuristic stadium and mobile light-beams were then added to create a high-tech yet plausible vision of Nike's future. None of this would have been possible without the immense talent and generosity of G M D THREE whose vision and dedication to the project is apparent in every frame.
"Last but not least, coherence and fluidity was brought to the piece by the prodigious talent of my editor Lucas Howe."
Director/ Writer: Dominic Lahiff
Production Company: www.dominiclahiff.com
Cinematography: Chris J Lytwyn
Editing: Lucas Howe
Graphics: G M D THREE