Hasta La Creative!

Are you up for some BGCP3TV in HD?

Los Angeles Clippers stars Blake Griffin and Chris Paul have each shown, separately, that they can anchor comedy. In State Farm’s Chris and Cliff campaign, Paul showed that he’s perhaps the NBA’s most gifted endorser. And Griffin? Well, he’s done so much comedy that he has his own section on Funny or Die.

Now, they’ve teamed up for an interesting project from Wieden + Kennedy New York and Jordan Brand—a pair of five-minute videos that are full of quirky comedy sketches. Both are pretty amusing—not surprising, since Neal Brennan, co-creator of The Chappelle Show, served as director and co-writer on these.

Griffin and Paul are launching new shoes a month apart, but these sketches are a whole lot more entertaining than some action footage would have been.

W+K’s Eric Helin wrote some sketches, as did Brennan. There wasn’t too much improvising—most of what you see was on the page, though Griffin and Paul made it their own. “I’ve worked with a ton of athletes and can honestly say Blake & Chris are among the best,” said Gary Van Dzura, W+K creative director. “They’re natural in front of the camera and have a great comedic timing.”

“Pretty much what you see is what you get,” Brennan added. “They’re friends who clearly spend a lot of time together. They like and respect each other and are used to making jokes all day. I was also amazed at how quickly they were able to memorize the material.”

Asked if there was a limit to how goofy he wanted the sketches to be, Brennan said: “One of the sketches that got cut out was super crazy. But I don’t think anybody really thought of them as crazy/not crazy. At least I didn’t. I just thought of them as tonally correct and funny/not funny. The Ohhh Bros. sketch is about guys whose lives are ruined by reacting to basketball plays. That’s pretty crazy.”

CREDITS
Client: Jordan Brand
Project: BGCP3TV in HD
Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, New York
Executive Creative Directors: Susan Hoffman, David Kolbusz
Creative Directors: Gary Van Dzura, Jimm Lasser
Writer: Eric Helin
Art Director: Erwin Federizo
Head of Content Production: Nick Setounski
Producer: Orlee Tatarka
Account Team: Jerico Cabaysa, Price Manford, Heather Morba, Cory McCollum
Business Affairs: Sara Jagielski
Production Company: Go Films
Director: Neal Brennan (Director & Co-Writer)
Executive Producer/COO: Gary Rose
Executive Producer: Adam Bloom
Line Producer: Marc Benardout
Director of Photography: Chuck Ozeas
Editorial Company: Starch Media
Editor: Bijan Shams,  Scott Ashby, Jeremy Hsu
Post Producer: Susan Applegate
VFX Company: Stardust & Elastic
VFX Lead Flame: Alex Frisch
Telecine Company: MPC LA
Colorist: Ricky Gausis
Mix Company: Eleven
Mixer: Jeff Payne & Ben Freer
Producer: Susanne Hollingshead
Song: “Junkyard”  (Original Composition)
Artist: James Poyser