Sport and Motion
Barclay’s Women’s Super League
Not here to play
The Brief
The ad pulls players from the WSL together to advertise the new 21/22 season, putting their skills at the centre and pulling the rug on the fictional director’s plans, as he instructs them to be “nice and lively with the eyes,” whilst asking for "nice bright smiles." For a mock up start of season photoshoot. The shoot was to create 'organised chaos' in the studio, with the main event being the footballers who as the new season approached, were in a competitive mood on-set. Elite. Unapologetic. Competitive. Entertaining. UNSTOPPABLE…
Our Creative Solution
The creative team were very much down to not play on the safe side, which helped really lift the spot. On the shoot football choreographer, Colin Nell, was tasked to build out the action scenes. With references from the director - such as a FIFA ad where Messi does a kick to the camera amongst many other trademark skills and flicks for notable ads- and had a rehearsal day with his specialist doubles and talent to bring the shots to life and work out the right skills to be used. He was the translator, essentially. Having a large database and access to some of the UK’s most exciting up and coming female football talent who would act as body doubles was a deciding factor towards pulling this off. Our unique URL system made the process easy to deal with. Just knowing we had our own database of exceptional talent for any scene gave us a competitive edge and put the EP at ease with this ambitious script. With our years of experiences we didn’t pull any punches, we figured out how we wanted this to be and what we wanted to do. It’s almost like a renaissance painting of mayhem and madness. It’s beautiful destruction, but you know - with a lot of women’s football spots, they go down a social justice female empowerment angle, which is really good, but also we need to remember these women are epic athletes, and showcase that fact.
The Result
The end result is a high-powered tongue in cheek look behind the scenes on a shoot that tries to box the players in, which they upturn to highlight their football skills and spirit. Teamwork was a key part to it on and off the screen. You’re only ever as good as your creative, producer, director, crew, choreographer or talent. The director Cassie Brooksbank was awesome, she really went above and beyond on this, and was down to try out a bunch of fun shots, listen and trust us to take a creative lead towards bringing out the very best on set and it worked!
