ART DIRECTOR
NBA FINALS 2026
The Story of A Champion
For the NBA Finals, we were asked to create a social-first campaign for a younger, highly engaged audience drawn to intensity, star power, and must-watch moments. With no shoot and the playoff picture still evolving, the challenge was to build a visual system that could move quickly with the series, stay relevant to the players defining it, and make the Finals feel even bigger than life.
MY ROLE:
I helped develop the concept and led the visual direction from early thinking through final post. I shaped the archival and gameplay treatment, footage selection, music, VO, color, and VFX language, while working closely with editors, producers, and the client to keep the story responsive to the series as it unfolded.
POINT OF VIEW
The Finals are never only about the players standing on the court now.
Every generation arrives carrying the weight of the ones before it, chasing the same stage, the same trophy, and the chance to write themselves into NBA history. For a more casual audience, the opportunity was to make that legacy feel personal and easy to enter. We moved between archival Finals moments and present-day gameplay to show history not as something finished, but as something still being written. The question at the heart of the film became simple:
Who will write the perfect ending?
EXECUTION
The film moved between generations, pairing archival Finals imagery, legendary voices, and early-career moments from current stars with game footage from the series itself. The edit was designed to feel cinematic and story-driven, while still staying current enough to respond to the most recent games. I helped curate the archival and gameplay footage, pushed for player choices that reflected who was actually shaping the series, and worked across edit, music, VO, color, and VFX to keep the balance between history and immediacy. The campaign was delivered in 10s, 15s, and 30s across multiple aspect ratios for NBA social and CTV.