Creativity Drives All of Us in Gravity-Defying Spot for Lexus

To introduce the new Lexus ES 350 F Sport, agencies GOLIN and Zooppa tapped Michael Medoway to bring authentic user stories to life. 'The Art of the Dunk', features former Harlem Globetrotter Chris Staples who tells us how he turns inspiration into his gravity-defying dunks. The film draws inspiration from basketball culture, including a nod to a classic video game. “The flaming-comet-basketball was something that came to me in the middle of the night, but now I’m pretty sure it snuck into my subconscious from all those hours playing NBA Jam as a kid,” said Medoway.

On the choice of Medoway, Dylan Wise, agency producer at Zooppa said: “As soon as we started talking with GOLIN, the first person I thought of was Michael Medoway. Not only does he have the technical skill to pull this off but also the unflinching creative eye necessary to tell these stories. The entire campaign is predicated on the idea that creativity is what drives us. So not only did we need on-screen talent that embodied this, but we needed someone that could transform their story into a visual language that resonated with the idea of movement.”

DP and frequent collaborator of Medoway’s, Alejandro A. Wilkins, added: “For the Art of the Dunk we wanted to suspend time and expose the subtle light within typically fast moving elements. In this case Chris Stapleton’s stylized basketball dunks and the speed and elegance of the Lexus ES 350 F Sport. What Michael pitched to me was to create a dream, a visual expression of the subconscious, so we approached the cinematography grounded in reality, but enhanced by metaphor. The resulting piece contains very strategic choices for colour and compositional themes, obstructions of the frame, frame rates, and the juxtaposition of elemental expressions. Utilising high-speed cameras (Vision Research Phantom VEO 4k), practical effects and specified art direction enabled us to better specify the details of each shot and ultimately make for what I feel is an incredibly authentic visual experience."

Now freelancing, Medoway has an established career of bringing to life exotic, on-location brand stories as a nomadic director. “In 2018 I forgot what my bed felt like. I spent a month in the Bering Sea on a fishing boat for a commercial, shot a documentary in Mexico, found myself in a jungle in Peru and had a couple shoots in Japan.” His most recent film “El Gallo” was an official selection of DOC NYC and won “Best Short Documentary” at the Rome Independent Cinema Festival.