Is this Federer's Trickery

Is this Federer's Trickery - Or Gillette's?

Posted by Shirley Brady on August 19, 2010 12:00 PM

The video above, shot on the set of Roger Federer's new commercial for Gillette Fusion in the U.K., has attracted more than 2 million views on YouTube for a simple reason — nobody's sure if it's real or faked. Federer, whose last U.K. spot for the brand showed off his wizardry as an all-around athlete, knocks an empty water bottle off a crew member's head (twice) with blazing speed.

Gillette isn't saying if it's real or a digital trick. A spokeswoman tells Mashable, "All we’ll say at the moment is we’ll leave the ‘real or fake’ debate up to the viewers, but the evidence is there to see. Roger’s skill and ability is incredible (that’s why he’s a Gillette ambassador!) so of course it was filmed in one take during a shoot for Gillette Fusion’s partnership with the British Skin Foundation."

We have our theory; what's yours?

It's so fake. Watch his position when hitting the ball, he is facing slightly to the right (to the left of the camera angle and the guy with the bottle on his head). After he makes contact and makes one step forward, then Federer changes his angle and turns to look at the guy.  His aim is clearly to the left of the guy.

The ball also disappears half way through the shot. How convenient.

Would Federer risk getting sued for such a stunt?  A Federer serve directly into someone's eye would surely make him loose the eye.

The guy fakes dropping the bottle to make us think it is not attached to anything. But after he picks it up, the camera turns its attention to Federer. Then the guy appears again with the bottle on his head, of course this time around it is another bottle that has a string attached to it in order to pull the stunt.

The conversation before the stunt is so fake too. The way Federer leaves the set also looks fake.

The guy that passes the second ball to Federer, grabs the ball before Federer asks "one more?". Then Federer msses the toss from the guy to give time to the bottle guy to stage the shot again.

I guess you need to have played a bit of tennis to be able to analyze Federer's posture and angle when he makes contact with the ball.

Great viral video which will get everyone talking, but it is as fake as so many of the sports commercials out there.

David L-J says:

I can't decide if it's real or not... the Fed-obsessed side of me says it's genuine...
You can read more about this, as well as Federer's own comments about the ad, here, zeitgeistandstuff.wordpress.com/.../

August 19, 2010 12:27 PM #

Shirley Brady says:

Thanks, David - I'm inclined to believe the shots are real, but the event was staged. The pre-demo chat sounds fake; a camera happened to be rolling (and the crew member just happened to have an empty bottle in his hand); the chap closest to Federer happened to have a spare tennis ball in his hand for shot #2. All too convenient! That said, I don't think Fed would put his credibility on the line with a faked shot, and think no digital wizardry was involved -- just that the whole thing was Gillette's attempt at creating a viral stunt. I'm willing to be convinced otherwise!

August 19, 2010 01:04 PM #

Josip Petrusa says:

I like how we all want to know if it's real or not - myself included. What matters is that it works. It gets the attention of everyone. Regardless of being staged or being two different shots or be digitally altered, the idea itself is to get me and you to watch, then tell everyone else about it. And I did. It's a great clip.

August 19, 2010 03:15 PM #

Shirley Brady, editor says:

Excellent points, Josip -- it certainly got the job done in terms of generating buzz and curiosity! Federer's a class act, and it's fun to watch him spoofing his image a bit and having some fun.

August 19, 2010 03:30 PM #

Pepin says:

August 19, 2010 05:47 PM #

Interesting to read Federer's comment today on all this:

“I don’t do it that much, but, yeah, it was shot in one piece and it was – the guy took a chance. It worked out. I’m happy.”

straightsets.blogs.nytimes.com/.../federer-coy-on-trick-shot-video

August 19, 2010 05:58 PM #

Like Gillette, he is not saying yes or no to the question if it is fake. They are leaving the doors open for people to decide what they want to believe. So as long as they leave the doors open to any possibility, their image will not be affected. If he would come out and say it is a real shot with no digital manipulation, then he would be in trouble quickly since there are already some video analysis out there doing frame by frame analysis which shows the real trajectory of the ball is to the left of the guy and half way through the show the ball has been digitally removed.

Some professional players have also said that would be a hard shot to pull off since normally a tennis player is not aiming so high. So, it would be an awkward shot to pull once, and specially twice in a row.

August 19, 2010 06:20 PM #

Federer and Gillette are definitely playing coy on this - likely to draw out the speculation and buzz, but could it backfire against both?

August 19, 2010 06:23 PM #

yoyo says:

Who cares if it's real or fake...why do we have such a need to over analysis everything around us...it's a bit of fun...stop being so cynical about advertising and marketing...if it sells more razors good on Gillette...seriously....just enjoy it for what it is...a clever idea....if you're so cynical then stop talking about it or sending it on and try and come up with a good idea yourselves....

August 20, 2010 06:18 AM #

Mistersteak says:

Yoyo nailed it—Gillette is everywhere now—so who cares about validity. Kudos to the strategist.

August 20, 2010 11:45 AM #