“We were delighted to collaborate once again with Thornberg & Forester to create the brand launch film for ATP. They scoured hundreds of hours of archival footage to find the perfect clips to weave together, creating an emotionally packed montage for the sport in general, and for our new logo design in particular. Under a tight deadline, they delivered a phenomenal asset for the brand. Incredible.”
– Sagi Haviv, Partner and Designer, Chermayeff & Geismar & Haviv
Founded in 1990, the ATP Tour is the sole worldwide top-tier tennis tour for men, organized by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP). The ATP Tour comprises ATP Masters 1000, ATP 500, ATP 250 and The United Cup.
Our great friends and masters of brand identity, Chermayeff & Geismar & Haviv, put Thornberg & Forester forward to craft a New Identity Brand Film that would launch the beautiful logo they designed for the ATP.
The film would not be an anthem or sizzle, it would be a conceptual and visceral narrative that would deliver a great sense of feeling, drama, excitement and emotion through sound and picture, ultimately leading viewers to the worldwide unveil of the new ATP logo.
The 1 to 2-minute film would be comprised of existing footage that we would request and source from the 35-year archive based at ATP global headquarters in London.
Our process began by writing treatments and pairing each with musical reference for added creative support and context. Each of three treatments would focus on similar, but different, aspects of the amazing sport – Passion, Action, and Future – through the lens of the ATP Tour. We also started the conversation of what shots we would need to bring the winning treatment to life. From specific players (retired and modern-day), crowd shots and ATP venues, to detail shots of trophies, court surfaces and slow-motion clips, the amount of content we ultimately received over the course of three weeks for our 1:30 film was 1.6 terabytes.
We worked very closely with Chermayeff & Geismar & Haviv to design an arresting sequence of events, rich with visceral emotion.
Thornberg & Forester editor, Henry Hayes, built an incredible foundation for Round 1. From there, he continued to refine, push and pull, integrate amazing sound design, swap shots based on individual and collective feedback from ATP and C&G&H, and continued to shape the film into becoming something quite remarkable.
The narrative progressed to become an honest and true reflection of what players literally feel over the course of a high stakes match.
Intro Build Sequence 1 / The Standoff: We start with heart-pounding anticipation, extreme closeups of familiar gazes, citing major standoffs, tension builds on and off the court, as racquets are spun slowly and cameras begin to take focus. We cycle and match-cut through the years of tennis greats as the serve clock counts down toward zero.
Intro Build Sequence 2 / The Toss: Tension builds further, we focus on the ball toss, punching in and match-cutting, on a host of modern-day players.
Intro Build Sequence 3 / The Serve: We flash to glimpses of ATP Tour Champion trophies, and match-cut through a succession of tennis great serves, captured close-up and in slow-motion. The first serve is struck. Dip to black.
Sequence 4 / Action: Music comes alive, we jump back in time and begin a succession of quick cuts of serves from Bjorn Borg, Stefan Edberg and Ivan Lendl to more recent serves and strikes by Sampras, Becker, McEnroe, to most recent iconic action shots of Federer, Nadal, Djokovic and Sinner, to name a few. Dip to black. Music drops off.
Sequence 5 / Inner Warfare: Picture returns – we hear and feel the inner warfare that professional players experience. Tennis is not just a physical sport. A massive component of the sport, especially at the professional level, is the ability to find and maintain composure and mental clarity. The internal struggle is palpable. Dip to black.
Outro Sequence / Victory, Reward & ATP Logo Reveal: Cut to a sequence of absolutely arresting moments of victory. We cycle through several players, capturing their transcendental expressions of absolute triumph. The new ATP logo embraces these moments, encapsulating the players, and leads to a massive Sinner forehand winner, creating a wake of power, heat, precision and speed to ignite the full logo reveal.
In addition to cutting an amazing film, Henry did an incredible job with sound design. The green, and several blue layers below, represent each sound effect that he artfully added to our music track (which was also edited). Ultimately, the film became a visual and sonically-rich testament to authentic storytelling.
We delivered the hero film in four formats and created additional social assets (cutdowns and logo animation sequences) for the team at ATP to have as much media as possible for the global launch of their new identity.
This marks our eleventh project with Chermayeff & Geismar & Haviv. Sincere gratitude for putting us forward to bring your amazing work to life.
Special thanks to the awesome team at ATP Tour. We really appreciated your direction, continued support, and your multi-week deep dive into the ATP Tour archives to source the clips we needed.
Thank you to the stellar team at T&F for your continued determination, drive and passion to make work of this level happen.
Thornberg & Forester
Executive Creative Director: Scott Matz
Producer: Javier Gonzalez
Editor & Sound Designer: Henry Hayes
Animation: Jim Forster, Scott Matz, Jase Kim
Cleanup & VFX: Scott Matz, Matt Tragesser
Color: Tristan Kneschke
Mix: Javier Gonzalez
Chermayeff & Geismar & Haviv
Creative Direction: Sagi Haviv, Tom Geismar, Kerstin Scheuch
Production Support: Mika Owens, Marilee Scott
ATP Tour
Senior Vice President, Brand Marketing: Andrew Walker
Senior Director, Digital Strategy & Content: David Slade
Senior Producer: Will Salter
Production Director: Kate Flory