Wilson films on campus, donates equipment

Wilson Sporting Goods filmed a football advertisement at Oak Park High School from April 9 to 10 in exchange for a donation to the school’s football team.

The advertisement, set to be featured on the company’s website, highlighted players of the Oak Park football team promoting Wilson football products.

Wilson originally scouted Oak Park’s location through head football coach Casey Webb.

“OPHS got involved from a former player that I had coached –– Matt Byer. Matt is currently a student athlete at Brown and had an internship over the summer with Wilson,” Webb wrote to the Talon. “While he was at Wilson he connected me with a man named Blake Rus.”

The photoshoot was designed to capture authentic high school football.

“The theme was to show off the new Wilson footballs for their new collection of Wilson footballs, both with actual high school students and in an actual high school environment,” director Rogue Rubin said. “The story I was going for essentially was a week in the life of a Wilson football and the high school associate; our idea was to go more newspaper style –– black and white, low saturation, grainy.

According to Rubin, that meant a lot of difficult work.

“Getting the shots is a ridiculous amount of pre-production –– knowing exactly what you’re looking for, and years and years of experience,” Rubin said. “Getting the shots is coming down on the day and trying to explain to people –– the students at the school who haven’t modeled or acted before –– and asking them to just be themselves, which is harder than it sounds. So, to be yourself authentically on camera and for us to then try and grab those magic moments.”

Junior Cole McCreary described being in the shoot, which took place over two days.

“The first photo shoot I did was when I had to be at the school at 5:15 in the morning. When I showed up, they let us wear Oak Park gear in full pads and we started off by throwing the ball. Later they had me diving to catch a ball and we ran through some situations with my other teammates Keith Mowatt, Michael Hewitt and Nick Catania,” McCreary wrote. “The second photo shoot was when they came to our zero period Football class, they started us off by giving us gear to wear that was made by Wilson. Then they sprayed water on us and put Vaseline on us to make us look like we were working hard. They just took pictures of us weightlifting and had the team take some pictures.”

Vaseline, according to Rubin, is an industry secret to create the illusion of sweat.

“Vaseline creates a shine and it also holds the water better. We were shooting in 40-degree [Celsius] heat, so the water would automatically go away, so the Vaseline holds the water better,” Rubin said. “They all look more muscular [with the Vaseline].”

Wilson ended up taking 30,000 photos for their shoot. According to Wilson associate brand manager for team sports, Blake Rus, those pictures will likely go onto Wilson’s website in a month. In exchange for shooting on campus, Wilson will donate equipment to the football program.

“They decided that instead of paying us, because it was Wilson, they paid us in equipment,” Principal Kevin Buchanan said. “So, they’re going to give us thousands of dollars of football equipment, so that’s how we got paid.”

The film crew also staged a real football game featuring Oak Park’s players.

“We had a ridiculous number of players show up, which was amazing, and we had them set up as if it’s a real game, and then I’d scream ‘stop’ and then we’d photograph them in those positions,” Rubin said. “What I was doing to create, authentically, the best shot is I would have them run plays and then suddenly something amazing would happen in that play –– someone would grab the ball or someone would fall –– and then I would scream ‘hold the pose’ and they would have to hold right in the middle of the scrimmage or the catch, which is very difficult obviously. And then we would very quickly run over with the lights and the cameras to catch that pose.”

Rubin has numerous experiences shooting football –– one of her clients is the NFL.

“Last year I filmed three commercials with three major league NFL players –– one was Emmanuel Sanders for the Broncos, one was Stefon Diggs for the Vikings and the third was Doug Baldwin for the Seahawks,” Rubin said. “Everyone thinks football players are not that smart –– these guys were incredibly intelligent with the most amount of amazing work ethic. As polite as your students were, these guys were even politer, and I think that goes to show what it takes to be a professional football player –– that it’s not just about the talent, but it’s about the drive and the passion.”

Rubin said that she’s become emotionally invested in all the players is proud of their success.

“This was the second year I worked with Stefon. Stefon Diggs caught this amazing pass [that almost brought the Vikings to the Superbowl] and changed the entire game. Everyone had thought that the Vikings had lost the game –– he caught this pass; it was unbelievable and changed the entire game at the last second of the last minute at the last hour. I was filming overseas at the time, and jumping out of my seat screaming, and then texting him, I’m sure along with 20 million other people, screaming ‘I can’t believe this just happened,’” Rubin said.

Rubin is one of three percent of female directors globally.

“I think that as young females, we have to work harder in order to be noticed. And, I think that when people tell you that maybe you’re too bossy or that you are the number of words that I’m not gonna use, you should take that as a positive sign that you are doing the right thing and not as a negative sign. Because, it’s okay to be demanding, it’s okay to be bossy, it’s okay to be outspoken. These are not negatives, they are positives,” Rubin said.

Inviting Wilson and their crew was one of the rare times that a company is able to come film on campus, according to Buchanan.

“We’re in California, we have a beautiful location, so we get requests quite a bit of people wanting to come and do some filming here,” Buchanan said. “[However], It’s very difficult for us to be able to give them a facility, so we’re not always able to do it.”

A shoot takes a lot of resources, Buchanan said.

“They bring a lot of stuff –– they bring all these vehicles, trailers, and just trucks of stuff that they need for all the set up. And then they need power, they need facilities, they need bathrooms, they need changing rooms, so we have to open the bathrooms. We have to have people here to be able to make sure they’re running their extension cord. We have to block off parking, we may have to notify people who are using our facilities, who already have permits –– whether it’s WAGS, AYBA, the basketball people who we have agreements with, whether it’s us –– we have things going on all the time, so it’s very rare that we can carve out the time and the space that they need for a successful shoot,” Buchanan said.

Oak Park has pre-determined prices for renting facilities and filming on campus. For example, film production per day costs $2,300, renting the football field costs $115, and the stadium lights cost $150.

According to Buchanan, although it is rare, multiple crews have filmed at Oak Park.

“We’ve done some student stuff, where film crews from USC have come to do projects because it’s a big film school. There’s been some movies made on our field. Gabby Douglas came to film during graduation once –– she had her own show so they sent a crew to film her graduation,” Buchanan said.

With crew experience, Rubin provided advice on getting noticed.

“To every student: take every single opportunity you can get, and as much as I say it’s okay to be bossy, and it’s okay to be authoritative, you must also remember to always be humble when you’re starting off,” Rubin said. “Be humble and see everything, and that takes a number of years before you’re ready to be the boss, so humility is important.”