The Intricacies of Crafting a Naked Alternate Universe for Puma x Noah
What if the world did away with clothing and nudism became the norm? Sure, the fashion industry would be in despair but think of the streakers. How would exhibitionists ever make their point?
We get a glimpse of this alternate reality in a joyous spot from Chandelier Creative and O Positive director Brian Billow for a collaboration between Puma and US clothing brand Noah. It takes place at a clay court tennis match between two stark naked dudes, who are spectated by an equally bare crowd of people. Chaos ensues when our streaker pops up, suitably decked out in gear from the two brands’ recently launched collection.
To find out more about the challenges and joys of crafting a spot with the most naked people that he’s ever seen, LBB’s Addison Capper chatted to director Brian and Chandelier Creative chief creative officer Michael Scanlon.
LBB> What initially inspired Dare to Unbare? Why did this reverse streaker idea make sense for Puma x Noah?
Michael> Noah and Puma intersect at the love of the life lived around sports. We knew we wanted to create a joyful, clever idea that existed around sports not THE sport. We had an idea around streakers in sneakers, then Brian Billow, our director, flipped it into something much larger and world-building. What if the world was naked, and the rebels un-bared?
Brian> We thought it would be interesting if we reversed the usual ‘naked streaker at a sporting event’ trope. By flipping what we all know and love about streakers we not only boosted the entertainment level but also focused the message solely on the retro clothing collaboration. It was a win-win from a creative and marketing perspective.
LBB> This might be the most naked ad I've ever seen. With all this nudity in mind, what did you have to consider in terms of the creative process and pre-production to make it possible?
Michael> It was a gargantuan puzzle to consider how hundreds of naked extras would be able to appear on film. We tried to not censor initially, and use smart compositions and blocking to hide bits, but that proved impossible with the scope of the scene. We weren't sure if the work would be banned on platforms or in certain markets, but it felt worth it to swing and see if we hit. And of course we prepared for the worst.
Brian> The amount of nudity or near nudity necessary to create our naked world alternate universe required about 130 background extras who were willing to be dressed only in bikinis for the entire shoot day. This meant we had to actually cast for background actors which is atypical. Also, we conducted a wardrobe fitting for not only the featured actors but many of the featured background actors. We fit them for bikinis that matched their various skin tones in an effort to minimise the amount of post production work to ‘paint’ out the bathing suits in Flame. This was still a painstaking process executed very well by Schmigital Finishing FX at Mackcut. It’s also atypical to ‘fit’ that many actors in a commercial, granted there wasn’t a lot of fabric in that fitting.
LBB> A streaker could pop up at any sporting event. Why tennis?
Michael> Noah founder Brendon Babenzien's inspiration for the Noah x Puma collection came from images of early 1980s tennis wear. Also, it's such an elegant and tasteful sport, it felt funniest for us to have the juxtaposition of clay courts and bare butts.
Brian> The tennis venue provided an appropriate backdrop to highlight the retro tennis look of the clothing line collaboration between Noah and Puma. And beyond that the vintage tennis world has a rich visual history which allowed interesting choices for hairstyles, accessories, film grain, aspect ratio and colour grade. The goal was for our film to have a nondescript, original look and tone that begged the questions, ‘Where is this? When is this?’
A tennis stadium made sense for the brands and also kept the streaker’s obstacle course intimate as he manoeuvred away from security, entertaining the fans.
LBB> I often ask about the casting process for a spot, but I'm extra intrigued about this. How did you go about casting people that were comfortable being in the nude?
Michael> Production magic. Katie Knab Olsen, Chandelier's head of production is a wizard and a sorcerer and found hundreds of incredible, beautifully diverse people who were willing to work in the nude, full-sun for two days.
Brian> It was a joy to cast in Mexico City. The diversity and interesting faces and body types of our actors all help to convey intrigue in addition to being naked. Although there wasn’t a lot of dialogue in this film we purposely mixed dialects and accents, used audio over dubbing and a fabricated language for in-stadium signage to convey a nonspecific foreign peculiarity.
For our streaker, Sebastian Silveti, I had worked with him on a previous job and I had him in mind for this immediately. He had just the right amount of physicality, wonder and cheeky charisma for this role.
LBB> With all of that in mind, what was the production like? How did you capture all of this?
Michael> It was certainly a career first. And one of the most memorable productions I have ever been on. We were blushing and giggling the entire time while trying to push the work forward with love and ambition, and I think the energy just radiated onto film.
It was very ambitious to shoot this entire film in only one day, but we had a great plan and a very hard-working crew thanks to O Positive, my producer Eric Liney and our production service company The Lift. Chandelier Creative was extremely collaborative every step of the way. They had a great foundation for this retro vibe that we shaped into this irreverent spot. It was also a pleasure working with brands like Noah and Puma who are led by innovative creatives and designers with fantastic aesthetic tastes.
We captured all the action with long zoom lenses on three Alexa 35s. Kenji Katori lent his artful hand as the cinematographer and the colour grade was done with Stefan Sonnenfeld at Company 3. The edit was flawlessly executed by Mackcut’s Ryan Steele.
LBB> What were your biggest inspirations when it came to set design, the vintage tennis vibes and things like the popcorn spectators are eating?
Michael> Tasteful styling and clever humour feels born from Noah; throwback sports culture feels authentic to Puma. We wanted it to feel totally agnostic of time and era while pulling bits from our favourite references. From ‘Strangers On A Train’ to ‘90s paparazzi photos of [Ayrton] Senna and JFK Jr. It was about creating our own magic world.
Brian> It all started with Chandelier’s photography references from the ‘70s, ‘80s, ‘90s tennis world. That, cross referenced with my fond childhood memories and a lot of digging and watching historic clips, led us to this idea that we wanted it to feel retro but not perfectly specific and foreign to anyone no matter where they are from.
LBB> Wardrobe design is, naturally, at a minimum. But I need to know about security, who, to me, are the real stars of this spot.
Michael> Absolute legends who could take me away in cuffs any day.
Brian> It was important that we follow the trope of sports streakers and simply reverse or flip it. In every streaker clip we researched, much of the comedy comes from the security teams chasing said streaker. We wanted to be sure they read as security and without the typical yellow shirts, they could read as fans. The idea to stencil the word SECURITY on their backs along with tool belts and boots helped telegraph their authority and encouraged the viewer to root for our streaker.
LBB> What were the trickiest components and how did you overcome them?
Michael> The trickiest component was believing in the idea, and taking everyone else along.
Brian> I’ve always said, I would never ask an actor to do something I wouldn’t do myself so out of solidarity I wore nothing but a G-string for the entire shoot day. For that I owe my entire crew an apology.
