under armour_tt v4

BEHIND THE SMILE
TREATMENT BY TERRI TIMELY

THE SMILE IS HERE. AND HIS SHOES ARE FANTASTIC.
A campaign as unique as the shoe and man behind it. These
films recreate that local havoc Steph has caused so many
fan bases - hating the outcome while completely loving and
respecting his style. Leaving nothing in his wake but a memory
of perfect jump shots and an even more perfect smile. He
might be screwing with San Antonio, Houston, LA and beyond
but he’s so charming you can’t help but love him.
On a more selfish note, these spots will also be incredibly fun
to create. The world of ‘Premium’ local advertising is rich in its
own specific aesthetics. We would love to collaborate with you
guys to make a series of counterfeit local spots.
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LOOK & FEEL
These films are love letters to the very sincere,
borderline performance art ads we love and
share with friends. These are a significant
upgrade of the degraded lo-fi Betacam 4:3 local
commercials from our youth. They are more
polished because the prosumer equipment at
the videographer’s disposal are so much more
refined now. A local Video Artisan might employ
a sweeping tracking shot on his slider to make a
wall Hardware cabinet fixtures feel more epic, or
he might shoot a fork cutting through a piece of
luscious cheesecake with a wide open aperture
to throw the candle in the background into gauzy
soft focus. But over all, these are filmed with a lot
of the pieces that combine for competent filmmaking,
but something is definitely off. There is
a clunkiness to it that lets us know exactly what
world we are in.
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We’ve researched local ads and we’ll sincerely play by
their rules. It won’t be until the viewer realizes “Hey!
That’s Steph Curry” and begins connecting the dots that
they see this was a sick burn the whole time. It’s more
subtle than the bombastic showy “Crazy Eddie’s Cars 4
Le$$” ads of yore. Those old local ads were designed to
be eye catching spectacles. The ads we are referencing
are smaller, smarter, more subtle. And thus — even more
impactful in their surprise. We might let some shots linger
a bit too long, maybe we cut one of our testimonials
off a little too early in the edit or we leave a screw-up in
because it somehow slipped through to the final cut.
While we never go too weird, and never intentionally
so, we want to include all the little details that make
the ads we’re mimicking special. I’m thinking of those
unnecessary shots of chefs cutting cilantro, our hardware
store owner feeling like he needs to show you specifically
how every handle works and every detail of our pool on
display all showcased in Comic Sans graphics. Keeping
the address and telephone number on a bar at the
bottom of frame is key.
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We want our locations to be practical whenever possible
and we love the idea of shooting some exteriors in the
actual cities they’ll be airing. The more authentic we can
make these the better.
It’s important that there is a degree of variation in the
look of each of these spots. We don’t want to tip off the
viewer by making them feel like they are all part of the
same campaign. Each spot will look like it is created by
a different Local Auteur utilizing a style specific to the
genre. The Spa spot will be shot with a super shallow
depth of feel to give it a faux dreamy gauzy ‘elegance’
whereas the Handle Emporium will be shot with a super
wide angles panning slowly to show off the massive
selection. In the restaurant spot the camera might move
with the smiling server as she brings some colorful dishes
to the famished patrons.
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CAST
Familiar, diverse faces. Subtle, realistic
performances that ring true to our homemade,
local genre. We’ve already got Steph showing off
the SC 4s next to an unending wall of handles -
so for our casting we keep it honest and genuine.
We want people who can carry the sincerity well
so we’ll definitely look to professional actors, but
checking out people who actually work in the
store would give us a great foundation to build
on and we might even find a diamond in the
rough (gardening section of the hardware store.)
The beauty of these kinds of ads is how localized
they feel. Natural accents from the areas and
performers that unmistakably feel Oklahoma
City, Houston, LA. Once again never dipping into
parody with campy accents or aggressively “aw
shucks” performances, but a realistic portrayal of
our regions that helps ground our stories before
things get too silly.
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Our spokesmen might have a little eccentricity to
them - there’s a vanity that comes from thinking
you should be the one in front of the camera hyping
your company - but nothing that goes beyond the
standard “blowhard boss” world. Turns out those
guys are everywhere and they think they are not too
shabby in front of the camera.
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Our customers vary in age and ethnicities but share that
general lack of comfort with being on camera that all
testimonials share. Some might not be looking right at
the camera while others might feel like they’re reading
their emotions right off of cue cards. Their thoughts and
feelings are their own, and they aren’t going all Tim and
Eric on us. They’re just a little shy but maybe still like the
idea of being on camera and are doing their best.
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STEPH
We only have Steph for a limited time so we’ll make
sure to make him comfortable and let him do his
thing. We absolutely want to have real sets for him
to play in - while he might be the GOAT of threes,
an actor he is not so we don’t need him on a green
screen trying to pretend he’s in front of a bunch of
door knobs. We’ll build little corners of sets (again,
the door knobs for our hardware store, a little
mechanics corner for our auto shop, etc) for him so
we can quickly shoot his scenes and move from one
spot to another.
We also love the idea of having a couple of our
actors there to help fill out the locations so our
Curry shots feel as authentic as possible. An extra
employee in the background or a customer browsing
so Steph has something to play with and we feel real
in our world.
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HELLA* PRODUCTION
VALUE IN THE BAY
As a Berkeley Native and a current Oakland resident, we cut
our teeth making low budget music videos and commercials
in the Bay Area. Until several years ago we even had our
own Roger Corman meets Saul Goodman studio across
from where Facebook currently resides. We have a crew that
we have shot scores of projects with, from stealing shots
for music videos out of my grandmother’s station wagon to
global campaigns for IBM. To survive in the Bay Area working
on Film Shoots, crew members have to be able to wear a lot
of different hats. For each massive features that shoots in
the Bay Area for the scenery, there are two dozen corporate
video shoots for the disproportionately high amount of
companies based there. We will embrace the fact that we
are not shooting in LA with its more stringent rules to take
advantage of this versatility to get as many spots as possible
by shooting more days with a smaller more flexible crew.
*Hella is a slang contraction for ‘a hell of a lot of’ in Northern Californian parlance*
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NARRATIVE
The Steph Smile is taking over the NBA, the world,
and even your local masonry. It would be terrifying...
if that smile just wasn’t so damned charming.
Each spot takes on the same formula, ending with
the SC 4s on full display along with our sly, “Oh I
didn’t even realize I was beating you by 30 I’m just
having such a good time” grin. He knows what he’s
doing. And we love him for it.
For our openings seconds each film feels like the
standard spot for a local business, that is destined
to fail. We don’t see anything off until the reveal that
Steph is around and also they seem to be making
quite a few basketball puns. Then the shoes.
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Poor Cleveland. First you lose to Golden State. Then you lose
Kyrie. You know Lebron’s halfway out the door and the coolest
dude to call Cleveland home is about to be Drew Carey. Now
Steph’s reminding you about all those bricks. At least those
uniforms are pretty cool. Take a win when you can get it.
We’ll want some extras here to fill out the space. We might
have some people operating empty forklifts in the background,
still going through the motions even though there isn’t a
brick in the building. It also could be fun if some workers are
shooting some balled up paper into the trash can, killing time,
and of course missing every shot. If only those bricks could
turn into real bricks…
For a final beat, as our camera lingers on the SC 4s, we
might have Mark clear his throat subtly to indicate it’s time
to bring the camera up to his face, where we reveal him and
Steph smiling. We might also want to linger on that smile a bit
too long and we might have another shot of a bored worker
putting up a brick, letting out a quiet “Aw, man!” upon his
brutal miss.
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Soothing soundtrack. A babbling brook. Pure comfort and relaxation.
Our camera is absolutely handheld and this is a perfect opportunity to
have some fun with amateur camera movements. Some frames aren’t
completely centered, the zooms are a little off and Sarah might be
out of focus for a split second. Never going too far, just some realistic
effects you might see in a local ad and a reminder that we’re looking
at something homemade.
An exercise in editing. Before our reveal of Steph we’re seeing just
how many shots we can cram into ten seconds - pool pumps, heating
mechanisms, shots of Sarah jumping in then a moment later he’s
outside the pool completely dry.
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Both MVPs and Hardware owners agree, it’s all about the
handles.
We love the idea of Earl being a little more deadpan here.
There’s the spokesmen that hog the camera and then
there’s the guys that we aren’t positive why they wanted to
be on camera in the first place. Earl is one of these guys.
When he goes through each handle Earl feels the need to
show you how it works - this one twists clockwise, this one
has a button lock on it, this one’s a wildcard and twists the
other way. He’s not the best joke teller and maybe his eyes
dart around a bit after he delivers “we’ll handle it!” to see if
it landed.
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Earl doesn’t react heavily to the falling handles, or we might
do a jump cut as if we edited out his pain. Curry comes
running in and he might be just as deadpan and nervous as
Earl, except when he flashes his smile he’s full Steph and
lighting up the room as always. He might pick up a handle
and whisper to Earl “I love handles” or “Can’t beat great
handles” and Earl nods affirmatively. He’s in San Antonio. He
knows all about the dangers of handles.

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As we discussed earlier, we want our customer
testimonials to be a little wooden. There’s
something so inherently hilarious about a person
who’s comfortable having a dragon reading
Dickens tattooed on their bicept, but completely
uncomfortable being on camera.
For this one, or any of them for that matter, we
want to absolutely nail the way voiceover comes
in on these local ads. A little out of sync, a little
too loud. There’s just something about local
voiceover that feels alien, like they’re just learning
how to edit and aren’t going to spend another
five hours trying to get the VO right. We’ve been
studying it. It’s awesome and we’ll bring it out in
its full glory here.
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We’re in Charlotte so we should hear some very deep fried, North Carolina style rapin the
background and there’s a laid back, southern style IDGAFness to our narrator. These are
North Carolina tattoos which means they are either probably some kind of flourished up
tarheel, or an incredibly large tribute to Dale Sr. Everyone has an easy breezy lilt to them.
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We talked about this a bit on the call, and we still feel like
we don’t want to go too crazy fancy with our restaurant. We
might transition this from LA proper to be someplace in Napa
or Santa Barbara - a place where you convince rich people
they’re having a next level experience when really they’re
paying top dollar for a generic, mediocre product.
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This film feels like it desires dissolves, lingering shots on our food and
nodding, satisfied customers that look like they were pulled out of Getty
Images. Shots of chefs operating the dishwashing machine (because
everybody needs to see that), slow pans of a table full of almost
appetizing food and maybe a toast between our diners and chef - just like
every restaurant you’ve been to ever.
Our narrator is almost aggressively smooth, like a classical music DJ. We
wonder if maybe he has some sort of weird attraction to dishes. Not that
Steph would judge - he supports dish lovers of all kinds.
For our lob dish, we love the idea of most of the food completely missing
our customer. Dumplings, bits of steak and chicken all bouncing off our
guys face, but he doesn’t seem at all disturbed by it. It’s just part of the
culinary experience. Or he’s getting paid to act like it’s awesome and
doesn’t want to get screwed.
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Our spokesman has a bit of Big Texas to him and he’s
got a slight accent and maybe even a cowboy hat. We
love the idea of having him kick the tires of some of
these customized rides to show how awesome they
are, of course it’s also really small so he actually kicks
the mini car over a couple feet.
It would be great to get some shots of service
technicians doing all the things that you might see at
a car customization shop: a fellow lying on the ground
with half his body sticking as he reaches his hand
out to receive a wrench from his younger apprentice,
another guy uses one of those pit-stop super powerful
compressed air drills to remove the nut from a custom
rim, and even a guy with a mask on welding a custom
grill. But in each of these scenes there is the added
absurdity of each of the cars they are working on is
super time.
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When Steph rolls out he should have a little grease
on his face as if he’s been been changing oil filters all
day. He might no look toss a wrench into a bucket of
tools twenty feet behind him. Once the supers up we
stay on Steph and our Owner a few seconds too long,
letting their smiles linger and almost become disturbing.
Maybe another kid rolls through the frame in their ride -
a big wheel with spinning rims - creakily rolling by and
stopping to stare at the camera.
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HERE’S A COUPLE OTHER IDEAS WE’RE LIKING AS WELL:
“SMILE CAR STEREOS”
While Kiddie Car Customization is an actual brilliant
business idea, if its too expensive to pull off for the budget
we thought of an easy alternative. . Instead we’d like to
consider making it something like standard auto repair or
maybe they specialize in installing car sound systems.
If it’s car systems, their deal could be that they’re the only
shop in Dallas that installs a triple speaker system. “We
know that in Dallas, people hate triples. But here at Smile
Speakers and Autos, we know it’s the only way to be a
winner.” Then we cut to a variety of cars getting “triples”
installed. Our reveal of Steph could still have him coming
out from under a car or maybe he’s working under the hood.
Mechanic Steph says he’s “All about the triples” and gives a
big smile to Dallas.
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“SMILEY’S JEWELRY”
At Smiley’s, they know that all that matters is rings.
You have to have rings. They also know that nobody in
Charlotte has a ring - I mean, some people in college
have one but that doesn’t really count. So they’re
presenting to you, the Smiley’s Double Ring Deal.
2-for-1 rings, because everybody knows two rings are
better than none. This is the classic jewelry ad where
we see couples looking at rings in glass cases, wives
trying on the double rings and nodding approvingly,
jewelers surveying the double rings with full game
faces on.
For our Steph reveal he could be a customer (maybe
with his wife) checking out one of the rings. He asks
our store owner “Is there room to add on two or three
more rings to this?” Our owner smiles wide and says
“Absolutely, we know that nothing’s better than a ring
for every finger...hopefully one day Charlotte will to?”
That last part might be too much shade for our local
boy, we’ll let him decide.
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THANKS
These films are as unique as they are hilarious and give Steph a new way to seep into our cultural unconscious. Plus we get to fulfill our dream of being a commercial
director in Oklahoma. Can’t wait to discuss these further. We also wanted to leave you guys with a selection of some of our favorite local gems below. - TT
PA-NASH EUROSOUL JAIYA RESTURANT FRATELLO’S ROBINSONS HARDWARE
FANTASY COLLISIONS & CUSTOMS
SPA DIAMOND HOTEL FAMILY HARDWARE CHRIS’ CORNER ITALIAN CASCADE NATURAL GAS
JEWELRY GALLERY OF OYSTER BAY
ARITSANS RESTAURANT WEST TEXAS COMPLETE CUSTOMS BURT LEVY FAMILY JEWERLY AVALANCHE AUTO MASSAGE ENVY
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