TV

Winner of Best Spec Spot at the 2006 AICP Awards ...

& it looks like some serious money (favours) were put into this one!

... a few words from Jerry Brown, the director:

This story is based on what I think is an amazing truth - with the supremacy
that Africans have achieved in distance running, so far there has been no
African American high schooler that has ever run the mile under 4 minutes.
Ever. Four white kids have broken the barrier, but no African Americans.
In talking to some leading track coaches about this, I learned that there
are many reasons why this is so, some cultural, some not. The one thing the
coaches agree on is that there are kids out there that have the ability to
do it, and it's just a matter of time before this barrier falls. It's
unbelievable to me that it hasn't already. And I wanted to tell this story
before the event actually took place.
What if a kid has already done it and we just don't know about it because of
where he lives? To me it's the story of a barrier that's about to fall.

We shot this in South Central LA because I wanted the texture and
authenticity of the neighborhood this kid could emerge from. We shot it in
one quick day, then added the helicopter aerials in about an hour's worth of
helicopter shooting later. Adding that extra layer of scale with the
helicopter shots was critical for us because it helped the story become
bigger and capture the immensity of what is to overcome in distance both
figuratively and literally to say nothing of the implication that it's a
police helicopter keeping an eye on this running kid.
The setting is intentionally hard and real, but it's still a neighborhood
with good people that live there. In ways, this neighborhood has more hope
and life than a suburban cul de sac. The neighbors, his friends, are
positive and hopeful and want to see this kid succeed.

Jerry Brown


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