adidas Originals Superstan Advert & Key Visuals

Overview

adidas Originals took two of its most recognisable silhouettes, the Superstar and the Stan Smith, and made a single shoe out of both. The Superstan.

HYPEMAKER pitched for the campaign and won it. I led the creative team through that pitch, and the concepts my designers brought were part of what won it.

The film starred Stan Smith himself, shot in Florida, playing on the fact that a Wimbledon champion is better known for a trainer than for tennis. Marie Schuller directed it through RSA Films. I ran the key visuals.

Approach

The shoe handed us the idea. A hybrid of two silhouettes with two different personalities, one out of tennis and one out of basketball, so the treatment split the frame down the middle and gave each side its own world.

The part that matters is that we did it in camera. Nothing was composited afterwards, which meant every shot had to be built physically on the day, and that is why so much of the work happened before we got there.

I led the pre-production presentations and the storyboarding with the director, the creative director and production, then carried the mood boards onto set so the concept survived contact with a shoot day.

On set I art directed the photography and owned everything to do with the sneakers themselves. How the laces were tied, how the shoe sat, how it was held, the angle it was shot from. I built the shot lists and worked alongside the director on positioning, including where Stan's legs needed to be for the split to line up.

Then I led post-production on the photography, directing the retouchers and designing the final artwork for the still life, on foot and lifestyle key visuals.

Outcomes

The campaign won Gold for Best Fashion Film at Berlin Commercial and Silver at the CLIO Sports Awards 2020.

The key visuals ran across the HYPEBEAST network and were picked up by Highsnobiety, COOL Magazine Taiwan, SNKRDUNK and LUST DF.

The shoe was the idea the whole way through. Two silhouettes, two sports, one frame split between them, and nothing faked in post.

Read on HYPEBEAST

Credits

• Agency: HYPEMAKER
• Director: Marie Schuller / RSA Films
• Creative Director: Brendon DuVall
• Senior Designer: Erlen Masson
• Production Manager: Anna Carradice-French
• Production Director: Tom Cantwell
• Production Assistant: Hetty Yoxall
• Designer: Vilde Tobiassen