This is a key moment in time for the foundation, preparing for the next 40 years of work while looking back at all the accomplishments that have built towards something bigger. In my mind, this spot should feel significant, epic, and awe-inspiring.
What I would like to do is something I have come to call a "moving painting" concept. This leans heavily on extremely high frame rate shooting with specially designed camera systems to capture incredibly short slices of time and draw out each moment, holding our viewers' attention — depicting moments that feel extraordinary.
Put bluntly, this is super slow motion — but with an emotional and grounded touch.
So how does that integrate into our idea? Let's go through the key elements in order:
We begin with the archival footage, as breaking through the banners is going to be our key motif, carrying through both the film and the campaign. It's a build of tension, a flashing of cuts….
10,000km
20,000km
30,000km
We are seeing the man in motion, the history of the foundation coming to life. Cut, cut, cut, then… A breath —
We are in our "moving painting" world.
It's a blank-canvas space — something industrial and neutral.
Rain, direct light, pooling water… We are seeing macro details of a wheelchair moving through heavy rain. A hand grasping the pushrim, the rubber tyre spraying water, a banner floating through the frame — we can make out a portion of "40,000km."
We cut to falling reflective confetti, a shout of victory from a sweat-drenched face — then cut wide to reveal Leo Sammarelli, in boxing garb, raising a belt. Confetti drifts around him, and slowly descending behind him is the broken banner reading "CHANGE ATTITUDES"
One more cut to a hand gripping a bar, a clenched brow, dust, dirt, and debris flying around a rider on an adaptive motorised wheelchair. Sparks fly from the chair as the rider bears down, a banner reading "SET NEW STANDARDS" breaking away behind them as we slam cut back to —
Another cut: We see a hand grasping a mobility cane — and a diploma scroll. We catch camera flashes on a smiling face… Cut wide to reveal a graduate who is blind, wearing a gown and cap. Around them, scores of graduation caps rise and fall in super slow motion. A banner reading "INSPIRE HOPE" slowly floats down behind them, broken.
Downpour rain. We are back where we started. A head rises and falls with the motion of a wheelchair; we can’t see them through the rain. The music swells. A close-up on the head rising again — It's Rick, heading towards the ultimate goal.
An unbroken banner reading "A WORLD WITHOUT BARRIERS."
Cut to supers.