Great Guns’ Jonty Toosey for Nike
Great Guns director Jonty Toosey joined forces with digital agency AKQA in Shanghai and animation com- pany Artbox to shoot a stunning new spot and unique interactive experience for Nike’s new HYPERSHIELD clothing and footwear line.
The thought of running outside in the winter months when it’s dark, cold and miserable could deter even the most dedicated of joggers. Based on this insight Nike launched the HYPERWARM and HYPERSHIELD col- lection, a set of warm inner wear, shielding jackets and shoes that keep runners dry and protected. The idea behind the campaign was ‘win against the elements’. The AKQA brief was a brilliant animatic, throwing live action and 2D animation together. The gauntlet was thrown and the Great Guns team fearlessly took up the challenge.
Toosey filmed the runners in a giant green screen studio in Shanghai, and then worked with Artbox in Am- sterdam to place them in a dark 2D world. There they battled it out in an epic urban battle against the men- acing elements of winter, in the form of the most evil winter monsters imaginable. Technicolour Shanghai provided the terrific post muscle to see the job through, and Massive Music scored and fused a grinding rock techno dubstep track to drive the film.
The campaign bridged real life running and social networking by connecting NIKE+ with Weibo, a Chinese mi- croblogging site. Runners wear a NIKE+ running device, which is available on most smart-phones: the NIKE+ app records their results and submits their score instantly to Weibo. By sharing your run with NIKE+, using a specific hash-tag on Weibo, the application knew when you had gone running, and checked live weather reports to tell you which elements you had defeated. Runners who completed 10km in more than 3 different weather conditions were entered into a draw to win a full set of Nike HYPERWARM and HYPERSHIELD kit. The winter monsters also have their own profile pages on Weibo, and runners can interact and challenge them on the site.
The biggest battle to overcome was time and time zones. “We needed to work simultaneously with the creat- ing of drawings, filming, postproduction and music to ensure we would deliver on time. Dogged determina- tion, inspiration, adrenaline, spirit, raw talent and a brilliant disregard for sleep allowed the team to see the project through to delivery,” commented Toosey.
The result is epic, taking the audience on an awesome outer-worldly hardcore urban battle against winter.
Credits
Agency – AKQA
Agency Executive Creative Director – Johan Vakidis Creative Director – Kelly Who
Senior Art Directors – Tea Qiu & Elyn Dong
Director of Delivery – Joel Godfrey
Director – Jonty Toosey
Production House – Great Guns
Executive Producer – Janene Fitzgerald
Line Producer - Xintai Feng
DOP – Rain Li
2D Animation – Artbox Amsterdam
Artbox Artist – Freek van Haagen
Motion Designer / Animator – Hugo Goudswaard Post Production House – Technicolour
Colourist - Lynette Duensing
Online Editor - Barry Greaves
Post Producer - Steve Marolho / Lily Li
Music Production – Massive Music
