Pretty much out of nowhere, Dick's Sporting Goods has suddenly been coming up with some of the most impressive sports-related commercials, uh ... I'm going to go with "ever," actually.
This new football commercial, and the previous baseball spot, both made by Anomaly and director Derek Cianfrance, are little masterpieces of between-play tension that use only the space most other sports ads leave out.
The point is blindingly obvious, but only once it's made: This is where the teamwork happens. The quarterback calling the plays. The coach sending players in and out. The furious guard on the offensive team shouting at his defensive counterpart, "Next play! Next play!" It's reminiscent of the actual process of playing football in a way that few ads—hell, few movies—really are. And it reminds you what's so much fun about the whole process: the rush you get right before you try to do something you've been planning for a while; the nervous high of hearing somebody yell for the snap. It's most of what we actually remember from the sport, as opposed to the long runs or the great kicks.
Like the baseball ad, this spot is done in a single, Robert Altman-style take, with volume coming up on the players as they pan in from the right, yelling encouragement at each other and threats at the other team. Unlike the baseball spot, it's louder, it's busier, and best of all, it contains absolutely no music. The closest thing we get to a dominant sound, in fact, is the QB screaming for the snap at the end and then the empty noise over the branding.
Kudos to agency director. This here is a 40-yard pass.
CREDITS
Client: Dick's Sporting Goods
Agency: Anomaly
Chief Creative Officer, Partner: Mike Byrne
Creative Director: Seth Jacobs
Creative: Taylor Twist, Mike Warzin
Executive Producer, Head of Production: Andrew Loevenguth
Producer: Matt Flaherty
Business Director: Damien Reid
Account Supervisor: Ji You
Production Company: Radical
Director: Derek Cianfrance
Executive Producers: Frank Scherma, Donna Portaro, Tommy Turtle
Head of Production: Cathy Dunn
Production Supervisor: Rebecca Deelo
Director of Photography: Peter Deming
First Assistant Director: Mark Frishman
Art Director: Timmy Hills
Costume Designer: Jim Mancusso
Casting, Football Supervisor: Mike Fischer
Editorial: Rock Paper Scissors
Editor: Biff Butler
Executive Producer: Eve Kornblum
Producer: Melanie Gagliano
Postproduction: Company 3
Telecine: Tom Poole
Executive Producer: Tara Dowd
Visual Effects, Flame: Framestore
Executive Producer: James Razzall
Senior Producer: Graham Dunglinson
Visual Effects Supervisor: Alex Thomas
Visual Effects, Comp Supervisor: Sharron Marcussen
Computer Graphics Supervisor: James Dick
Flame Artists: Raul Ortego, Tom Leckie
Sound Design: Trinitite
Sound Designer: Brian Emrich
Sound Mix: Sound Lounge
Mixer: Rob Sayers
Music: Soup Music
Music Composer: Andy Huckvale
Track Name: "Sawtooth"