The project brief, from Nike Amsterdam via Blacklist, was to create a visually spectacular brand film for the launch of the newest edition of Nike’s CTR360 midfielder cleat; a boot designed specifically for ball control. Using prisms and reflective shards to depict the boot harnessing the chaos of a fragmented world, the video shows the cleat as it re-inscribes its environment with control… a sort of visually-anthemic “I am King” for a practically-personified glorycleat.

Upon receiving the prototypes of the boot in the mail, we recreated it in CG with exhaustive detail, modeling everything down to the last stitch for those killer close-ups we knew we wanted.

Because the cleat was so detailed, we knew all other elements like the prism shards would have to be similarly detailed with carefully placed chromatic separations, scratches and excruciatingly detailed reflections.

The final layer was the audio. Our longtime collaborator John Black wove together not one, but two sets of killer audio; the director’s version being what’s audible here. Part music and part sound design, John wanted the power and dynamics of the visuals to shine through sonically. Each scene acts as a movement building up to the final crescendo and resolve. We think that ball control films may have a new bar set for gusto… 🙂