BOSTON – A palpable buzz has been building around the Boston Celtics for the past several months as they’ve geared up for what could potentially be a special playoff run this spring.
A large portion of that hype has been self-generated from the team’s production on the court, where it went a league-best 64-18 during the regular season – its best mark since going 66-16 during its 2007-08 championship season.
But much of this year’s excitement has also been initiated by the production of another Celtics team off the court – a team of creatives operating behind the scenes who have stirred up a rousing playoff campaign through various marketing strategies. And it is their boldest, most technologically-advanced campaign to date.
All of those playoff hype videos and graphics that you’ve likely seen on the team’s official social media pages, all of the street banners, the digital signage, the in-arena motion graphics that you may have encountered in person – every one of those assets has been a result of countless hours of work put forth by the organization’s Creative and Content Teams, which consist of 10 talented artists and creative minds:
- Jacky Arndt – Jr. Graphic Designer
- Matt Carney – Manager, Digital Content Production
- Sam Crocker – Director, Digital Content Production
- Gage Duchon – Seasonal Content Producer and Editor
- Bred Hampton – Digital Content Producer
- John Picard – Sr. Videographer
- Katie Silver – Graphic Designer
- Jeremiah Wilson – Digital Content Specialist
- Jack Wu – Graphic Designer and Creative Operations
- Kate Von Iderstine – Digital Content Specialist
Those 10 individuals, with their varying titles and responsibilities, all came together in the months leading to the postseason, pooled their ideas into a creative cauldron and conjured up a cohesive game plan that would have made Boston’s coaching staff proud.
Their brainstorming sessions create an iron-sharpening-iron effect where they learn from and feed off each other’s ideas. This allows them to level up their efforts and helps to push them closer toward their collective goal of becoming the cream-of-the-crop creative/content group in the NBA.
In recent days, we’ve just begun to see the fruits that have been borne from all of their hard work. One of the more stimulating pieces to come out of the campaign was the initial playoff hype video that launched on all of the team’s social media platforms Saturday, the day before the on-court postseason journey officially began.
Duchon was the lead editor for this futuristic, technology-based piece, writing the script and piecing together all of its elements to create a masterpiece. The hours he put into the process were “too many” to count, he said, but it all paid off as the video reached millions of impressions in the blink of an eye.
Though, it wasn’t just Duchon behind the video’s creation. The entire content team played a role in its innovation, bringing individual concepts to the table, which were then executed during the team’s playoff marketing shoot in mid-March at WGBH’s studio in Brighton.
Each segment of the video had its own station inside the studio, and each setup was initiated and operated by a different member of the Content Team. Wilson came up with the cloning concept that you see in the theater at the beginning of the video. Von Iderstine produced the laser station that follows right after. Duchon conceptualized the trailing repetition station. And others helped by providing alternate camera angles and technical support.
The group went to extreme efforts to perfect such a technical project; for example, the laser machine was unexpectedly complicated to master, and so Carney had to seek the assistance of a laser expert up in the middle of New Hampshire so that they could operate it properly during the shoot.
But when a project of such magnitude comes to completion and is put on display, Von Iderstine says, “It’s the most rewarding feeling ever – to be a part of it from the very start of the lightbulb, and now it’s a whole finished piece for millions of people to see.”
That was just one of several incomparable pieces that have gone out on the Celtics’ social media platforms of late.
Hampton has been producing behind-the-scenes “sizzles” from practices and has also been capturing footage used on the digital signage outside the arena:
Carney created an adrenaline-pumping 24-second countdown video leading into Game 1 against the Heat:
Wilson clipped together a sweet-sounding Jayson Tatum highlight pack that was posted soon after Boston’s Game 1 win:
Those are just a few of the plethora of videos logged on the team's socials, and there will be plenty more to come.
The Creative Team has also taken its production up a notch in these playoffs with bold new concepts of their own.
After going with a “Dark Mode” theme last season, the graphics group opted to take a more colorful approach this time by showing off a diverse palette of greens while focusing on gradient usage.
Silver says, “There’s an emphasis on contrast, portraiture, and clean layouts. It’s very minimal, but it’s impactful.”
There is a lot of overlap and collaboration in the artwork produced by Silver, Arndt, and Wu. They spent the past couple of months comparing mood boards, inspired by various visual elements, while also coming up with a plan of how to execute their creativity with consistency.
“This year is a little different because we’re more aligned across the creative team,” Wu said. “So it’s really not starting from scratch each time; it’s more using whatever elements we align on at the beginning of the process and we go from there.”
Their art comes to life in many different forms. Arndt was responsible for laying out the artwork for the street banners and signage that fans see at the Hub on Causeway outside the arena. Silver was responsible for many of the in-arena designs, which are displayed on various digital boards. Many of Wu’s creations can be seen on the team’s social media pages, such as the three-column banner image of the full team lineup that is currently pinned to the top of the team’s Instagram page, which doubles as a highlight reel if you swipe on each frame. He came up with the concept while observing the very same playoff shoot from which the Content Team produced their hype pieces.
Just like the Celtics’ players have put in countless hours to hone their craft, the front office’s creative minds have been hard at work behind the scenes doing the same. Their responsibilities and exposure may differ vastly from one another, but they’re all working together under the same umbrella, inspiring the best fanbase in the world while striving toward the same goal.