Eugen Merher, a student of the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg in Germany created an spec ad for Adidas that is capturing the attention and emotions of people globally.
DIVERGE talked to Merher to find out more:
Why did you work on this ad?
It’s a spec commercial, which means that I gather a team at my film school and we produce a commercial together to get attention from production companies for our future.
Where did this idea come from?
The story is inspired by a distant relative of mine, who unfortunately passed away last year, but who has always been young at heart and an inspirational character in our family. He used to watch basketball games and stay up to date with news around the world. Whenever I talked with him I didn’t feel much of an age difference even though he was almost 60 years older than me. He wasn’t a marathon runner, but loved to take very long walks every day.
When we were in the middle of production we randomly came across a German feature film with the same theme and a similar plot. The film is called “Sein letztes Rennen” (“His Last Race”) and deals with an old marathon runner in a retirement home. I decided not to watch the film right before production so as not to subconsciously start copying it.
What inspired the Forrest Gump theme?
I’m glad that you mention the Forrest Gump theme because in my mind the idea was a cross-over between Forrest Gump and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, two of my all-time favorite movies. When developing the storyline I thought about letting the protagonist try to escape the nursery home in a rather sneaky manner, but that would’ve weakened his urge for running. In the end we decided to just let him run all the time, no matter the situation – kind of like Forrest Gump.
Future projects:
I’m currently finishing a short Amazon Kindle spec commercial that I directed with my fellow student Christian Schilling (www.christianschillingdirector.com) and I’m planning to shoot my next commercial that is due to be finished in April this year. Furthermore I’ll be directing a short film in July.
Who is the team behind this ad?
Producer – Karli Baumann, Karl Heidelbach /react-text
Director of Photography – Mortimer Hochberg /react-text
Editor – Ernst Lattik
Music – Alexander Wolf David
Sound design – Marcus Fass
Sound recording – David Hill
Production Design – Nora Brockamp, Julian Dieterich
VFX – Tim Markgraf
Make-Up – Sandra Untenberger /react-text
Production Company – Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg
