Archive 2001.03: May 2001 - June 2001 | back to 2001 Archived News

(June 28, 2001)   PAUL HUNTER TO SHOOT UPCOMING GAP COMMERCIAL
Paul Hunter is currently prepping to shoot a commercial for Gap.

(June 27, 2001)   MORE NIKE FREESTYLE PARODIES
More parodies of the Paul Hunter-directed Nike "Freestyle" commercials have been spotted.  A few weeks ago, the commercial was spoofed in an episode of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.  This past weekend, commercials for the upcoming Wayans Bros. movie Scary Movie 2 featured scenes that also parodied the commercial.  Its not certain whether the scenes were filmed just for the promo or if they are actually from the movie itself.

(June 18, 2001)   NIKE FREESTYLE PARODY
With the current popularity of the Paul Hunter-directed Nike "Freestye" commercials, it was just a matter of time before someone made a parody of it.  Nike "No Style" is a spoof of the commercials, which can be downloaded online at Adcritic.com.
click here to view video

(June 11, 2001)   NEW SUNSHINE ANDERSON VIDEO & COKE COMMERCIALS | ARTICLES IN NY TIMES & BOARDS MAG
Paul Hunter shot a new video, Lunch or Dinner, for R&B singer Sunshine Anderson last weekend in Malibu.  He was also Los Angeles the past few days shooting new commercials for Coke.

Paul Hunter and his work on commercials have been featured in 2 recent major publications.  An article in New York Times (April 10, 2001; pg.C8), discusses the Nike Freestyle commercial and the ad campaign surrounding it.  A more recent article appears in 'boards magazine (a magazine about the business of commercial production), about his work with Nike (Freestyle) and Miller Beer.
click here to read article at boardsmag.com 

(June 3, 2001)   NIKE FREESTYLE BEHIND-THE-SCENES SPECIAL
A 1/2 hour television special Nike Freestyle Commercial Behind-The-Scenes aired in the past few weeks on Canadian sports channel TSN as well as MuchUSA (the American version of Canada's MuchMusic).  Due to the popularity of the Paul Hunter-directed commercials, TSN is planning on re-airing the behind-the-scenes special next Saturday June 9 @ 12:30am.

(May 16, 2001)   BET AWARDS NOMINATIONS ANNOUNCED
The nominations for the first ever annual BET Awards were announced yesterday and a Paul Hunter-directed video has been nominated for Video of the Year.  The awards will be hosted by Steve Harvey and Cedric "The Entertainer" live from Las Vegas on June 19.  The nominations are as follows:

Video of the year:
Outkast, "Ms. Jackson" (dir: F. Gary Gray)
Dr. Dre / Snoop Dogg / Nate Dogg, "The Next Episode" (dir: Paul Hunter)
Janet Jackson, "All for You" (dir: Dave Meyers)
Eminem, "Stan" (dir: Phillip Atwell)
Destiny's Child, "Independent Women Pt. 1" (dir: Francis Lawrence)

(May 13, 2001)   NEW COMMERCIALS | UPCOMING ONLINE INTERVIEW | MTV DVD
According to a reliable source, Paul Hunter has completed several television commercials: 2 spots for Miller Beer and 4 spots for Dasani bottled water.

MusicVideoWire.com has posted news of an interview they did with Paul Hunter on the making of the video for Lady Marmalade.  The interview will be posted on the site in the next few weeks.

MTV is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year (the channel premiered on August 1, 1981), and they're releasing a 4-disc DVD set to commemorate the event.  The 4-disc collection, entitled MTV 20 Collection, contains more than 50 ground-breaking videos from the past 20 years.  The discs are separated into music genres: MTV Jams, MTV Rock, MTV Pop, & MTV Beats (all except for MTV Beats are available for sale separately; MTV Beats comes only with the 4 disc set).  Two Paul Hunter-directed videos are included on the MTV Jams disc: Erykah Badu's On and On and Usher's My Way.  The DVD's are scheduled to be released on July 10.

(May 8, 2001)   EXTENDED NIKE "FREESTYLE" VIDEO AIRING ON BET
With the popularity of the current Nike Basketball "Freestyle" commercial, Nike has released an extended 2:30 minute version of the clip to be shown on music video channels as a music video clip.  Nike re-hired Paul Hunter to shoot additional scenes for the commercial, featuring members of the WNBA and some additional NBA players.  The new version, dubbed Freestyle150 (referring to the length of the commercial, in seconds), was shipped to video outlets to be played as a music video.  It was presented as "Freestyle by Afrika Bambaataa and Hydraulic Funk" (the composers of the beat).  The video has been shown on BET video shows.  NikeBasketball.com has several downloadable versions (in Quicktime) of the original Freestyle commercial, as well as Freestyle (vers. 2) and Freestyle150 (definitely worth checking out).
click to read press release from Nike.com

(May 6, 2001)   NIKKA COSTA VIDEO TO PREMIERE ON MTV2
The brand new Nikka Costa video Like A Feather is scheduled to premiere on MTV2 this coming Monday.  The video will premiere on May 7 @ 10pm during MTV2 Presents: Videos To Watch.  Paul Hunter shot the video in early March.

(May 2, 2001)   NIKKA COSTA | VH1'S 100 GREATEST VIDEOS
An article about singer Nikka Costa appeared on MTV.com last week.  Included in the article was a description of her upcoming Like A Feather music video which was directed by Paul Hunter.  She describes it as an "over-the-top performance video".  "'It's got this 18-foot neon wall with my name popping up, and there's all these mic stand tricks. Think Ann-Margret, Elvis,' she said. 'The album takes on a whole new life when we perform it live, so he wanted to capture that.'"

VH1 announced yesterday its updated 100 Greatest Videos list.  2 Paul Hunter-directed videos placed on the list: Untitled by D'Angelo (# 44) & Honey by Mariah Carey (# 95).  VH1 has planned a series of specials in the next few weeks to highlight and discuss the chosen videos.