The USTA and US OPEN has always been a champion of equality. From becoming the first Grand Slam to grant women equal pay in 1973, to serving over 160,000 disadvantaged youth to this day. So we were delighted to help them out for the third year in a row. They launched “Be Open” back in 2020. A campaign all about keeping an open mind, being open to other’s experiences, no matter how they identify, and the massive impact we can have by simply loving and respecting one another.
This years focus was on smashing boundaries on and off the court, so that’s exactly what we did. We created an editorial piece with the greatest tennis players in the world putting on powerful performances and showed just how powerful they are by depicting them literally smashing a series of negative words .
To do this, we combined existing footage of their amazing serves, returns and slams with VFX. We rotoscoped them out, tracked the footage and lined up our words to float just above the court. Appearing realistic and almost glass-like. When hit, the words shattered into a million shards.