Nike Barbershop

Stacy Wall wanted to shoot a bunch of Nike basketball players in a barbershop, just ‘shooting the shit.’  We discussed this and decided to bring a couple of ringers, a girl barber, a comedian or two in case things got slow.  They never got slow thanks to Tim Hardaway.  I used three cameras to be sure I got everything, and my brother John was kind enough to leave his farm to help out (he had filmed the infamous ‘Good Morning Again in America’ stuff for Riney).  The killer was the sound.  We never told the athletes what to expect and ‘miked’ them before they entered the barbershop.  The clients were outside and couldn’t decipher anything since they heard all the tracks all the time.  What they heard was chaos with some swearing on the side.  Stacy assured them it was going to be alright.  Tim Hardaway set up the famous ‘finger roll’ for the Iceman, George Gervin, that gave him a new career.  Most of the spots were totally improvised and I don’t think that had ever been done before at this level. The sad note is that Timmy Hardaway blew it years later when he went off on homosexuals on a radio show.