25 Years On, Endless Noise’s Jeff Elmassian Recalls Nike’s “Freestyle”
Quick, name your favorite Nike commercial. Hard to do, ain’t it? For over a quarter century, Nike’s ads have both set the bar for creative and executional brilliance while setting tongues wagging across water coolers, basketball courts, gymnasiums, living rooms and boardrooms, not just in the US but around the world.
So, it’s hard to believe that it was 25 years ago that the spot Vice calls “one of its most memorable spots ever” first appeared. That would be “Freestyle,” created by Wieden+Kennedy and directed by Paul Hunter. It was just a series of basketball players, some famous, some soon to be and some from literally off the streets – freestylin’ with the basketball to a truly funky soundtrack that propelled the action and created stunning counterpoints to their amazing moves.
That soundtrack was the work of a studio called Endless Noise, founded in 1995 by composer, musician and orchestrator Jeff Elmassian. His credits in the world of music span almost everything you could imagine, from performing with major orchestras to composing for films and TV shows to teaching and writing. At Endless Noise, he’s overseen work for such brands as Amazon, Netflix, Discovery, TLC, Bravo, Coca-Cola, Audi, American Express, MLB and NFL – the list, need we say, seems endless as do the honors (Cannes Lions, Clio, AICP, D&AD, et.al.)
As the famed “Freestyle” reaches the quarter-century mark, The Howler reached out to Jeff to describe the process that resulted in this landmark spot and recount his experiences while working on it. Here’s what he had to say.
How did this epic assignment come about?
Jeff Elmassian: I started Endless Noise in the early ‘90s, and now-legendary producer Vic Palumbo and I became friends back then when he was a young producer at JWT in New York. In the late ‘90s I left commercials for a brief time to work on films, winning a Grammy for producing the soundtrack to “The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland” for Sony. After that the first commercial call I took in almost two years was from Vic, and it was for Nike’s “Hacky Sack,” starring Tiger Woods.
Needless to say, this started my relationship at Wieden, as well as relaunched Endless Noise back into advertising. It was on “Hacky Sack” that I met both Hal Curtis and Jim Riswold, who are two of the three geniuses I was lucky to work with during this second golden age of Nike work.
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Did the creative team come to you with the sound design idea initially? How did it develop into the final track? And did the director shoot the film while knowing what the track would be?
Jeff: Vic called one afternoon in early 2001 and asked if I’d be up to taking a crack at something they just couldn’t solve. He briefly described the spot and said that they had been working with the late Afrika Bambaataa to make a version of “Planet Rock” with “only basketball sounds.” So far, it wasn’t what the creatives were looking for. I told him I thought it would be best to define the sound palette as anything heard on a basketball court and told him I wanted to get out and do some location recording to build a unique library of sounds and phrases. I also told him I could probably have something for him by the end of the week: He said I had 24 hours…because a decision would be made the next morning to possibly cancel the shoot.
This was when I found out that Jimmy Smith, the third genius alluded to above, was working on this, and everything started making sense to me. Jimmy and I also go way back to the beginning of our careers. The very first spot I ever scored was with Jimmy, and it was pulled off air after one day (that story requires another article). That was Jimmy: constantly pushing buttons and pushing boundaries. In other words, the best kind of creative to be working with.
I then spent a few hours gathering sounds, mostly at the courts at Pan Pacific Park, and the rest of the day crafting the track. There was no footage, and I hadn’t seen any boards, so I was free to imagine whatever I wanted for the demo. I built up the first part of the track to a crescendo that culminated in a whistle (this ended up being a perfect moment for Rasheed Wallace) and then exploded the track into huge rhythmic barrage of bounces, whooshes, and grunts.
It was 2 or 3am and the track was great, but I knew it was missing a hook, something melodic. Most of the sounds I had were like drums, except for the sneaker squeaks. I can’t explain how much more difficult crafting organic sounds into samples was 25 years ago (I believe I was using SampleCell and a Roland S750), but it was hard getting those squeaks to be musical. I finally banged out a melody, burned a CD (remember, it was 25 years ago) and went to sleep.
A few hours later I headed over to the set to find everyone waiting for me. And I mean everyone: Vic, Hal, Jimmy, a bunch of Nike execs, the director Paul Hunter, and the dancer Savion Glover (!?!?!), and more than a few basketball legends. (I know I was exhausted, but I’m pretty sure I was staring at Lamar Odom while they played the track).
The minute the track finished Jimmy and Paul were the first ones to come up and congratulate me, but then immediately dove into the questions about how to shoot it, which for me was the truly groundbreaking part about this, and why I’ve never really had a similar experience.
The first problem was explained to me by Savion Glover, who was hired as the choreographer. The spot needed to feel like each moment flowed seamlessly into the next as everyone was passing the ball to one another. Also, while the pros were incredible athletes, none of them could do the tricks the street ball guys could do.
Savion and Paul came up with this idea of choreographing each moment around a different phrase in the music, but none of the guys could nail the moves in one take. I suggested looping the phrases into two or three-minute tracks that corresponded with the final track, allowing everyone six or seven shots at getting the move right before the shot was over. After discussing how we would edit this with Adam Pertofsky, the incredible editor I was lucky to work with on so many Nike spots, we decided to have the looped tracks playing on set and recorded as sync sound, so he could easily slot the best move into place later while editing.
This was the magic ingredient that allowed us to tweak certain moments when needed but essentially retain the energy of the original demo. In many ways it was like making a music video, albeit a very complicated one.
Did you have any idea that we’d still be talking about this spot 25 years after it first ran? Did you have a feeling you were doing something groundbreaking and “different"?
Jeff: I think I heard Jimmy say that it took him seven years to convince Nike to make the spot (he did the hard part). Once I presented the track, everyone knew the idea could work but weren’t yet convinced. When Adam showed us the first rough cut, everyone knew it was special.
How many people at Endless Noise worked on it? How much input did you get from the W+K team? Was Paul Hunter involved in the development of the track?
Jeff: My understanding and recollection of the creative process was that It was Jimmy’s idea to begin with. He (the copywriter), Hal (the art director) and Vic (the producer) were the creative team that drove it forward. Paul’s genius was the approach to filming it with all his brilliant music video sensibilities. Savion made the whole thing feel like a massive joyful dance, and Adam helped pull the whole thing together in editorial. I was the sole creator of the final track you heard on the spot, except for the initial beat that inspired the whole thing. You’ll of course have to ask Afrika Bambaataa how he wrote “Planet Rock” to get that answer.
Did Endless Noise’s work open new opportunities for your company? Did the quality of the work that came your way change after the spot was released?
Jeff: While “Hacky Sack” relaunched Endless Noise, “Freestyle” put us in a rarified place. After “Freestyle,” it wasn’t just the volume and quality of the work, but the sense that if you had what seemed like an unsolvable music problem, you came to us. I remember a team that requested a meeting because they were such big fans of “Freestyle,” and they wanted to do something just like it. Our producer at the time set a meeting and asked who the client was. It was Tampax.
Looking at it now, what would you do differently? And do you think any brand would undertake a project like this today?
Jeff: I wouldn’t change a thing and would be surprised if any one of the creative team would say differently. Perfection isn’t something you can do. It just happens because all the right people were in the right place at the right time. It’s why people outside of the creative process have such a hard time understanding that you can’t just “do it again” or “make another one like that.”
It’s great getting asked to recreate “Freestyle” over and over, and I love seeing the Wayans still spoofing the spot 25 years later. Sadly, I think it’s much harder for creatives to sell that “seven years in the making” idea now. But we’re ready when they need music and sound!
How has sound design evolved in advertising since you first launched Endless Noise? What do you feel are most prevalent today?
Jeff: Sound has evolved in the same way it has in all media. Digital manipulation has allowed us to do things that weren’t possible before the age of the computer. Endless Noise has been lucky to be a part of pushing that boundary over the last 30 years. We are, however, getting ready to enter another wildly transformative time and are developing our own proprietary AI applications for audio usage. It’s terrifying and exciting, just like before, but that’s also for another article.
