featured-image

How 200 Utah Jazz fans helped shoot our ‘Team Is Everything’ video

Selfless.

Committed.

Hard-nosed.

Hungry.

The Utah Jazz aren’t any one thing. This team is everything.

And creating this season’s slogan and brand campaign was certainly a team effort.

The new “Team Is Everything” video spots were shot at Vivint Smart Home Arena on September 13, under the direction of the Los Angeles production company GenPop (and creative agencies Works Collective and 7D8). From the outset in their discussions with the Jazz marketing department, director Nate Morley and his crew knew they wanted to build on Jazz coach Quin Snyder’s adage that “the strength of our team is our team” while capturing the passion and collectiveness of Jazz fans.

“The Jazz have always been known for playing as a team,” Morley said. “We wanted to take that idea of team and expand it beyond the players themselves—how it all comes together and the sum is greater than its parts.”

About 200 people were invited to participate in the daylong shoot, bantering with Joe Ingles and, for a lucky few, snagging an autograph from Donovan Mitchell.

“This experience has been awesome,” season ticket holder Lance Mixon said. “It’s been cool to see behind the scenes.”

“To be here for my favorite NBA team is the craziest thing ever,” added Jazz fan Jessica Curtis.

But these fans didn’t just appear on camera. They helped film, too. Morley’s crew operated a RED Dragon 6K camera and 32 GoPros at the shoot. The rest of the footage was captured on the fans’ cell phones and uploaded to Dropbox folders throughout the day. The fan footage was then sorted and stitched together to create the video’s collage-style action shots.

“It definitely introduces a variable that we don’t always have,” Morley said. “It makes it a little risky, but we got some really good stuff. We were blown away to have so many people show up and take part in this. The amount of energy and love the fans have for this team is incredible, and you see the players give that love and energy back to them. That’s pretty unique. You don’t see that with every franchise.”

That sense of community is the driving force behind the motto “Team isn’t any one thing. Team is everything.” The Utah Jazz will use #TeamIsEverything as the primary hashtag for the 2018-19 campaign, a season long complement to the #TakeNote hashtag that fans have come to know and love. As part of the season tipoff, the Jazz have also commissioned two large-scale murals to be painted in downtown Salt Lake City in the coming weeks.

“We look forward to creating life-long memories for our fans throughout this exciting season of Jazz basketball,” said Steve Starks, president of the Utah Jazz and Larry H. Miller Sports & Entertainment. “The fans are the heart and soul of Vivint Smart Home Arena, bringing every Jazz game to life. The community they’ve built around the team is second to none. We can’t wait to welcome the Jazz back and tip off another promising year.”

Buy tickets to home opener HERE.