The best all-action sports video of all - and it's not even the Olympics!
It may be the most amazing sports-action commercial you'll ever see. It is certainly the best of the summer, says the US magazine Adweek . And it isn't even for the Olympic Games.
The spot is a promo for Channel 4's coverage of the Paralympic Games , to be held in London from Aug. 29 through Sept. 9 - a month after the regular Olympics which begin on Friday.
Produced in-house by Channel 4, the 90-second spot "uses brilliantly immersive camerawork and the blaring soundtrack of Public Enemy's "Harder Than You Think" to create a potent atmosphere of struggle, defiance, camaraderie and elation, " says Adweek.
"In the middle , the footage shifts from the track, the gym and the pool, to a war zone exploding with bombs and gunfire; a highway as a car is flipping over; a hospital as an expectant mother holds her belly and grimaces."
These are the original stories of the Paralympic athletes, moments when their lifelong challenges bloomed. The tagline is: "Meet the Superhumans."
Directed Tom Tagholm said on Channel 4's blog. "We really didn't want to shoot around the particular physical attributes of these athletes and their disabilities.
"We wanted to absolutely embrace all of that—their stance, the ways they've adapted to their sport, the ways that they use their bodies. It's very much 'Here we are!' y'know? There's no tiptoeing around anything.
"The flashback scenes were crucia, he adds, and not meant to be sentimental. "We weren't interested at all in doing an advert which said 'Isn't it great that these guys have made it to the start line?'
."What I wanted to do, though, was just get a flashback moment—to show that it's a part of what they are now and a part of their physicality. I didn't want to dwell on it, just to give a hint, a moment of just how tough these characters have had to be."
Adweek says the commercial is " a triumph of skillful direction and gritty, powerful storytelling." We couldn't agree more