adidas goes Ubersonic

With speed as the central theme, the sportswear giant tapped The Midnight Club and Fight Gravity to create a visually electrifying campaign that captures not only the shoe’s capabilities but also the essence of speed itself.

The campaign is a dynamic fusion of live-action and CGI, reflecting the relentless energy of the Ubersonic 5. Every frame is designed to exude velocity and movement, with every shot accelerating the campaign's intensity. “What story of speed can we tell? How can every element reflect that?” says Katie Stelling, director at The Midnight Club. “We needed to highlight the shoe’s tech benefits in a way that was visually exciting. That’s what led us to blend live-action with CGI, giving us the freedom to manipulate the shoe while keeping the energy raw and real.”

The result is a campaign that seamlessly shifts between real-world gameplay and hyper-stylised VFX, elevating the Ubersonic 5 to feel like a natural extension of the athlete’s movement. Live-action sequences shot with professional tennis players were carefully choreographed to showcase the shoe’s agility, grip, and responsiveness under match conditions. High-speed cameras and shutter-drag techniques were used to capture every sprint, slide, and serve, in a raw and authentic way whilst amplifying the shoe’s ability to keep up with the athletes’ relentless footwork.

"I love shooting real athletes, especially tennis players, it’s so engaging," says Stelling. "But we didn’t want the CGI and live action to feel disconnected. We designed the transitions so that movement on the court directly influenced the motion of the shoe in CGI.”

To balance realism with production limitations, the team used innovative lighting techniques. Director of Photography Edward Hiscox led the effort with a dramatic lighting setup tailored to fit the constraints of the Australian Open location. “For the Australian Open spot, I wanted to create a dramatic feel with high-contrast lighting,” Stelling explains. “Due to location constraints, we couldn’t darken the entire court. Instead, we built a large 4x4m black box with our lighting crew, which allowed us to isolate the subject while keeping the surrounding energy alive.”

This attention to detail allowed the campaign to stay grounded in the authenticity of the sport while still embracing a futuristic, stylised visual language. The collaboration between The Midnight Club and Fight Gravity also saw the Ubersonic 5 brought to life in a CGI space, pushing the boundaries of VFX to showcase the shoe’s cutting-edge features like its Minimal Mesh Upper, Lightstrike Midsole, and Speedframe.

Joe O’ Shea, a creative at The Midnight Club, worked closely with Stelling and Fight Gravity to ensure that the blend of CGI and real-world physics felt organic. "We wanted to push the visuals beyond the expected," Stelling adds.

One of the campaign’s most visually striking moments is an X-ray-inspired effect that reveals the Speedframe, the structural core of the shoe. “The Speedframe was described to us by adidas as the ‘skeleton’ of the shoe,” Stelling notes. “That led us to the idea of showcasing it in an X-ray-like sequence. Joe O’Shea and I really thought about how we could make these technical details feel engaging and dynamic, rather than just presenting them with a graphic overlay.”

While both the Australian Open and Roland Garros campaigns shared the same core concept, each tournament’s distinct atmosphere was woven into the visuals. “Out of the two slams, the Australian Open is most associated with night sessions,” says Stelling. “I wanted to create a sense of drama using an indoor, dark location, really lean into that nighttime intensity.” In contrast, for Roland Garros, the clay court became a pivotal character in the film. “The clay is almost like a second character in the film,” Stelling continues. “I wanted to feature choreography that would set the clay flying, so a lot of the CGI and live action is geared toward showing how you can slide in the shoe. The way the ground reacts became a visual language of its own.” The Roland Garros film, set to be released this summer, will bring this dynamic vision to life.

Despite the seamless execution, the production faced challenges, particularly in ensuring authentic gameplay while navigating the constraints of a commercial shoot. “One of the main challenges in the live-action setup was ensuring we had truly authentic gameplay at all times,” says Stelling. “Every shot needed to feel real, so the players themselves were consulted on how the action should flow. That meant constant adjustments to lighting, set design, and camera setups to match their natural movements.”