Apparently, Mindy Kaling is a fan of the HBO show Ballers. Hoping to create something similar to the work we did for that MT, Mindy tracked us down and tapped us to create the open for her new NBC show, Champions.
As happens sometimes, the creative on this project evolved quite a bit from where we started, as what Mindy wanted turned out to be quite different than what the network was looking for.
Our original concept, building off what Mindy loved about what we did for Ballers, was an edit of archival footage focusing on themes of the show like family, athletics, and New York City.
That original edit, after almost no notes, made it through all stages of approval up to NBC’s network executives in the Pilot stage.
At that point though, we had to pull a 180 and execute a very different concept, very quickly. Rather than build an edit out of archival footage, the network wanted a more standard approach, introducing the show’s characters.
With a 13 second total run time and 6 characters to introduce, we devised this split frame concept to hit all the beats in a manageable package.
Fun fact, at this point we were too late in the game to go through NBC’s stock footage approval process. With the production on the west coast, it was left to us to go shoot NYC establishing footage to incorporate. BAM and the Brooklyn Bridge in the below frame are SNC originals, shot in the heart of winter. We did not receive DP credits.