Wieden + Kennedy Portland's new Nike "Summer Play" campaign encourages sports fans to calm their competitive edge and just have a little fun.

Directed by Gorgeous' Frank Budgen through Anonymous via Toronto's Steam, "Tag," "Racing" and "Shaderunner" employ the director's cinematic prowess, the agency's au courant aesthetics and the jazzy edits of White House's Russell Icke.

"Tag" opens with ominous grey scenes of Toronto's skyline, busy streets and sidewalks. An unsuspecting young pedestrian is tagged on the shoulder and suddenly becomes a pariah as crowds scatter. He madly begins to pursue anyone and everyone as if seeking to pass off a deadly plague. Car doors are bolted and games of cat and mouse played out during the chase, which leads into the subway. He gets his arm caught in a subway door inches away from connecting. At the other end of the stationary train, an unsuspecting man waits. The two men's eye's meet and the game of "tag you're it" resumes. A deadly break-beat track with looming bass lines by composer David Wittman of Elias scores the piece. DP Ben Cerisin shot the spot.

The campaign was creative directed by Dan Wieden and Hal Curtis; Monica Taylor and Andy Fackrell were art directors, Mike Byrne and Kash Sree were copy writers and agency producer was Andrew Loevenguth.

"Racing" features a cyclist who repeatedly tests himself by racing to a Tchaicovsky song; the action is repeated in stuttering visuals shot by Budgen until the third repetition ends in the cyclist crashing as his rounds a bend.

"They wanted a new initiative, so we got this whole thing that play is the mother of sport; before sport there is play," says Byrne.

Even when you think about baseball or football they are games just as much games as tag," says Byrne. Fackrell adds:

"We wanted to make all of the campaign look not overly art directed or lit. Most days Budgen didn't even take the lights out of the truck. He shot pretty much running gun. Budgen has a rawness to his film, which helped the energy of the film, making it spontaneous without looking overly setup with each shot. Although he's pretty fastidious; we got all the edit options we needed from three cameras."

The creative team notes that commercials with less of an advertising air are more likely to impact on viewers; the 90 second format, strange edits and pacing gave "Tag" the feel of a short film. As for "Racing," Fackrell says the repetitive visuals contribute to an unsettling and therefore more watchable spot. Shot by Budgen at 6 FPS, a re-transfer, zooms and color saturation in post contribute to the sometimes flowing, sometimes stopping and starting visuals.

"You expect its going to be a hero spot, but people are sick of heroes," says Sree, his coworkers singing an apt Tina Turner song. "You empathize with people that fuck up, and of course he just happened to fall over."

The final spot, "Shaderunner," was still in post at press time; bad weather limited the number of shadows available during the shoot. Method Studios handled post.

Webfiles:
Wieden + Kennedy> http://www.wk.com
Nike> http://www.nike.com/play