This week's Hotshot is the latest instalment in 180's adidas Originals campaign from The McCoubrey Brothers through Radical Media. Super-sized superstar sneakers do bi-coastal battle as two art collectives face off in an urban stylewar.
They say you can tell a lot by the size of a man's shoes. Like the size of his feet. And his height. Amongst other things. But in this week's Hotshot the McCoubrey Brothers show that size isn't everything, as they pit East Coast art crew Surface2Air against the West Coast's Upper Playground, challenging both collectives to tag up a pair of gigantic superstar sneakers in just three days.
Rather than setting the two groups of artists a very specific brief, 180LA decided to keep things as loose as possible, as art director Erwin Federizo explains. "We set a very loose brief for the teams to work off. Basically, the artists from both coasts were told to create artwork that celebrates their very own originality and so we let them run free on colour palette, medium, and theme."
From the start, the idea was to create a film that would feel more like a music promo than a commercial spot, and Pete and Luke McCoubrey seemed a perfect fit to the team at 180LA. "We brought in The McCoubrey Bros. because they had a vision and fresh aesthetic for the film that ran parallel to ours," say Federizo of the collaboration. "What really mattered was working with these two true sneaker-phile directors to bring a lot of genuine energy and enthusiasm to the project. The McCoubrey Bros. proved to be a very strong one-two punch and they've created a piece of film we are all stoked about."
The colossal 15-foot superstar replicas were created at The Character Shop in California, and took almost a month to complete. "A lot of planning went into the creation of the gigantic shoes to ensure that they would be mobile, lightweight, durable, paintable and most important- exact to spec," reveals Federizo.
"In addition to all sorts of epoxy resins and shaping foam, there was a lot of meticulous counting and matching the placement of "x's" (found on the pattern of the rubber shell toe). Fire hose was used to replicate the shoelaces. And tiny wheel casters were placed under the shoes to make them mobile."
Click here to view this week's Hotshot - Left Right Project.
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