Knowing the film’s audience demanded that this film be educational, unexpected, wildly entertaining, inspirational and cool AF – amongst the most critical of Sneaker, Fashion, Sport and Nike & Jordan Brand fans – I set out to discover a visual language that tapped into the audience’s social behaviors, musical taste & attention spans, while allowing access to older fans of MJ, Basketball & Nike. We blended cinematic interview footage, outtakes, eclectic graphic language that transformed old advertisements in a fresh new way, and short sound-bite meets music-video pace, breaking the mold of traditional talking-heads plus stock footage of common documentaries.

It started with a burning itch to uncover the truth behind the zeitgeist of Michael Jordan & Jordan brand. During a brief on a shoe that took inspiration from the AJ1 – BOOM! I realized the answer was an Origin Story, a biography of the shoe that birthed it all. I pitched it to the brand, asking for full access, assets, legal & creative license to tell the story completely independent of them as a client. I would finance, develop, produce, distribute & market it on my own. In return, I promised this bold risk would grant the film journalistic integrity, an unbiased story that the brand could never tell on their own or while in control – and the audience would love the film and the brand for taking the risk, and the perception of the shoe, the man and the brand would be forever changed in its wake.

I started off by considering the shoe as if it were a 3-dimensional character, the real star and hero of our story. And like any documentary on a person, the filter became looking at the film as if a biography on the shoe was the basic structure. From there, I took a journalistic approach, stating a hypothesis, then investigating it and allowing the truth to guide the narrative, and the discovery to be the journey for the viewer. This, along with the sensibilities of the audience the film was primarily made for, and the time periods covered in the story, the music, re-imagining of ads in contemporary graphic style, the rapid-fire editorial style and the constant breaking of the serious, emotional exploration with a sense of humor brought the story to life in the most dynamic way.

Powerful Social Analytics and Audience Data from events and specialized focus groups told us clearly that there was a tremendous audience with a deep affinity for both MJ and Jordan Shoes -- specifically, the Air Jordan 1, which started the brand and modern sneaker culture. We knew audience segments were clearly defined by categories of sneakers, basketball, hip-hop, fashion and skate culture. And we knew from working with other areas of Nike and our own audience testing that social issues were of passionate concern, especially to our younger audience so would be welcomed. We set out to create the film to focus first on sneaker fans, but then clearly capture the larger ancillary audience across the remainder of our audience demos through hitting clear and consistent story beats that covered those topics and allowed us to connect the film to all of our audience demos.

Starting with a 30-page outline, I laid out subjects that fit into a proper 3-Act structure. This allowed unexpected discoveries, storylines and insights, while anchoring the narrative. We created a massive wish list of interview subjects and went down it one by one till we got about 90% of our asks. I was committed to creating something radically unique, through trial and error and experimentation – through the edit, graphics, music, placement, length and style of the interviews, even down to lower thirds. Experimentation & discovery was paramount and it lead to this eclectic mixed bag of techniques that the film embraces. Going in just one direction or following any easy roads just never felt right to this film. In the end, we spent 3 years, used 1875 original stock videos and photos, licensed 20 popular hip-hop tracks, 100 original pieces of score, 62 interviewees and amassed about 700 hours

The film premiered at Tribeca in 2018 to a packed 2,700 seat Beacon Theater (followed by a live Hip-Hop performance. We hosted a series of private screenings in cities around the globe (Paris Fashion week, Toronto – crashing TIFF, etc.). We soft-launched on Hulu in February 2019. Unbanned’s launch on TVOD is tied to the biggest sneaker raffle in history – allowing fans to buy a raffle ticket for a download of the film and chance to win one of two prizes – 5 rare AJ1’s (valued at $8K) and a pair of Original 1985 dead-stock AJ1’s (valued at $18K), while donating $1 from every ticket to United Negro College Fund. Following the raffle, the film will be available on the same TVOD platforms for purchase or rental. The film will roll out globally on iTunes, alongside a special release on TIDAL in the US and 16 select countries.