Authenticity and humanity were central themes for the Nike Be True campaign. With only 12 still photos to work with and 30+ seconds to fill we came up with the idea of playing off the color cards fans will flip in stadiums. Usually used to make a logo or message, our cards make animating patterns adding energy and excitement. They were all made by finding color blocks made from body paint and clothing from the fan shots themselves. We also like the macro/micro conflict used in the animation culminating in full frame imagery.

There were so many layers that the initial scenes were taking 9 hours to put together and animate initially, then we developed scripts and expressions that would read black and white animation and build frames for us with the animations happening automatically based on where black vs white was in the frame. After developing this technique we got to where we could develop whole new scenes at the rate of 9 per hour. A huge leap in efficiency that allowed us to focus on the creative more and less on the tedium of layer wrangling.