Summer Finally, perhaps my favorite campaign I’ve had the pleasure of working on, and my creative directing debut.
I developed the concept for the campaign on a beautiful May afternoon while walking into the ballpark for a 7 PM game against the Cincinnati Reds. The team was preparing to welcome fans back to the ballpark at full capacity for the first time since the 2019 season. With that in mind we were hard at work as a creative team developing an advertising campaign to let people know that, for the first time since the bringing of the COVID-19 pandemic, summer was back.

As I looked at the backdrop of a beautiful blue sky behind the Pittsburgh skyline, I thought to myself “What represents a day at the ballpark better than this?”. I quickly began developing a concept around celebration, and of course the gorgeous views of PNC Park. The objects flying through the sky are meant to simulate fans throwing whatever they are holding up into the air in celebration after a Buccos’ walk-off win. The illustrated animations are meant to keep it light hearted and fun.

Set to Sunday Best by Surfaces, these spots elicit memories of a summer stroll through your favorite Pittsburgh neighborhood, on your way to root on the Pirates at PNC Park. To this day, every time I hear that song I am reminded of these spots, and all the work (and green screen masking) that went into pulling them off.

This campaign touched every aspect of the organization's creative footprint, from physical signage, to web and social, to scoreboard creative and everywhere in-between. I'm super proud of bringing everyone together and building a shared vision to build a really exciting campaign. 

For all my fellow production nerds, in order to achieve this effect, we shot all of the objects flying through the air on green screen at 120 FPS. I then speed ramped the objects in the edit to achieve the desired flight speed.