Oh, I get it—soccer players.
Canal+ (that's pronounced cannle-plue, francophiles!) is the European HBO, and obviously people are excited about it—and about the big soccer matches it broadcasts—if this BETC spot is anything to go by. Even if you don't get the non-American-football joke straight away, the visuals here are excellent. And really, the potbellied man with the front of his T-shirt pulled up over his face is the international sign for sports fan.
Here, three pals do the "Gooooooal!" knee-slide through a French town, and river, and dock, and wheat field, presumably because their favorite Ligue 1 team has just scored. Where there seems to be CG in this spot (if you can figure out how they got the fans through the hedge using casters or drag mats, feel free to explain it to me in the comments), it is used well—these gentlemen appear to be going faster via knee than most of us can go on the subway here in New York City. (This agency-client team knows a thing or two about effects, too, having won the Grand Prix in Film Craft at Cannes this year for their triumphant spot "The Bear.")
Other nice touches here: the costume on the biker on the little farm-country road; the trip down the stairs (again, if that was a practical effect, I'd love to know how it was done); the "Ode to Joy" going underwater and becoming briefly muffled; and, of course, the postman, who has that reaction everyone has when they recognize that people who like their team are cheering.
All of this raises some serious and important questions about knee-based inter-département travel. Do you have to have a knee license to cross regional boundaries? Can you go at any time, or must you have recently seen a rerun of Zinedine Zidane headbutting Marco Materazzi? Are all knees all-terrain, or just those of soccer fans?
And will someone be waiting for you at the end of your journey with a spray can of Bactine and a Band-Aid? Because, as everyone who has been 6 remembers, doing that to your knees hurts like hell.
CREDITS
Client: Canal+
Client Management: Samantha Etienne, Béatrice Roux, Mathieu Mazuel, Guillaume Sionis
Agency: BETC, Paris
Agency Management: Alexandre George, Guillaume Espinet, Barbara Hartmann
Chief Creative Officer: Stephane Xiberras
Creative Director: Olivier Apers
Art Director: Ludovic Labayrade
Copywriter: Antoine Lenoble
TV Producer: Isabelle Ménard
Production Company: Henry de Czar
Film Director: Bart Timmer
Director of Photography: Alex Lamarque
Media Strategy Planner: Vianney Vaute