Nike’s latest “Just Do It” marketing campaign video has generated large controversy since its Labor Day unveiling for starring former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who polarized the nation when he started kneeling throughout the National Anthem to protest police brutality. But there’s one factor each viewer ought to be capable to agree on: It’s exhausting to observe the advert and not really feel moved.
Thank Dustin O’Halloran for a big a part of that. The 47-year-old American composer, whose notable works embody the scores for Marie Antoinette (2006) and Lion (2016) and the Emmy-winning theme tune for Amazon sequence Transparent, is the brains behind “We Move Lightly,” the striding, breathless piano melody that performs within the now-viral Nike advert. In the two-minute spot, Kaepernick narrates over clips of star athletes like LeBron James and Serena Williams, and urges viewers to “consider in one thing, even when it means sacrificing the whole lot” — each a motivational message and thinly veiled reference to the skilled penalties of his controversial political stance — because the music surges ahead.
While “We Move Lightly” was initially included in O’Halloran’s 2011 album Lumiere — and used within the cult romance film Like Crazy that very same 12 months — O’Halloran jokes that the tune has “adopted” him ever since. “One of the trickiest issues in music is to have a duality,” he says, reflecting on causes for the tune’s enduring recognition. “There’s a simplicity but in addition an optimism within the piece.”
Thanks to the advert, the monitor’s newest resurgence has begun. In the primary full monitoring week following the industrial’s Sept. 5 launch, “We Move Lightly” earned 308,000 whole on-demand U.S. streams (audio and video mixed), in keeping with Nielsen Music, a 361 p.c improve from the week prior. Of that sum, 254,000 had been on-demand video streams — a 946 p.c uptick from the week earlier than. And that is to not point out streams of the commercial itself, which has surpassed 26 million views on YouTube.
Below, O’Halloran will get on the cellphone with Billboard from Berlin to debate what makes the monitor work for Nike’s message, the ability of movie and his work scoring the upcoming drama The Hate U Give, which explores racial tensions in America.
When did you first change into conscious that “We Move Lightly” was getting used within the advert?
A number of weeks earlier than it dropped. [Nike] needed to see if I might form it a bit to the image. In the top, the piece is fairly intact to its authentic type. When I noticed the advert, I knew that it will in all probability make waves. I had no thought it will be the cultural phenomenon that it turned, which exhibits the temperature of the nation proper now — that it made such huge waves. This is a sophisticated time, and we’re a divided nation. It’s promoting, and all of us should remember that that’s what it’s, however it’s vital that persons are standing on the facet of democracy, and free speech and the suitable to peaceable protest. That’s all the time a superb facet to be on.
How a lot do you know in regards to the advert’s content material on the time you bought concerned?
I did not know till I noticed it [on television] that Kaepernick was in it. Obviously, he’s an enormous a part of it, however the remainder of it’s inspiring individuals to do their finest in adversarial conditions. It was a remark of the place we’re as a rustic and what now we have to beat. [Nike] made him an emblem of that, ultimately, by making him the face of this marketing campaign.
I don’t align myself with firms, per se, with my music. But so far as promoting goes, that is one thing that I might get behind. Anything that creates a dialog entering into the suitable method is sweet, whether or not it’s promoting or not.
Why do you assume the composition works so nicely with the message of the advert?
I feel there’s a simplicity and in addition an optimism within the piece, however there’s a way of depth in it. It’s capturing one thing that has a way of life. There’s a motion to it that propels ahead, and I feel that’s what the advert is about. What [Nike was] searching for musically, is that they by no means needed to make an anthem out of it. They needed to create one thing that had a way of honesty, however not bombastic.
How did the tune come about to start with, again in 2011?
I wrote it on my final report [Lumiere]. I used to be working in Italy on the time. That’s a bit that’s adopted me for a very long time. It’s a mixture of fashionable influences, and possibly a bit little bit of Bach. It’s principally simply two strains enjoying ostinato towards one another, or with one another. It was me looking for one thing artistic with the piano.
You additionally scored the upcoming Fox movie The Hate U Give, based mostly on Angie Thomas’ novel of the identical title, which touches on police brutality and the Black Lives Matter motion. How do you go about composing music for movies with a social message?
The industrial got here out the day earlier than The Hate U Give premiered on the TIFF. It’s a second the place I feel some huge firms are making an announcement.
George Tillman Jr., the director, wanted one thing that could possibly be actually sincere however emotional. With material that lots of people have already got emotions about, the problem is all the time to present it an emotional sensibility, however not make it really feel contrived or compelled. Trying to get a very sincere portrayal. The story follows a lady who witnesses this capturing. It tackles a variety of topics which are within the thoughts of America proper now. I attempted to deliver a variety of honesty and one thing visceral that folks will really feel.
There’s energy in cinema. We use it for leisure, however when there’s moments when it will probably attain lots of people, I feel that’s the opposite facet of movie. It’s nonetheless a really highly effective car for consciousness.
