The cheerleader goes up, and comes down
exactly through the basketball hoop. It seems like there has to be a trick to it somehow, though I can't figure out what the trick might be. As I watched the movie clip, I kept thinking 'what if her foot got caught in the net'. At the very least the net must be rigged so that it would rip away from the hoop if her foot were to catch it.
Comments
Does anyone know the diameter of a regulation basketball hoop? They seem pretty small to me. How tiny would a person have to be to fit through one?
Another observation for what it's worth: at the end of the stunt, the guys are all high-fiving each other and mostly ignoring the girl who actually DID it. Just amusing.
Could be faked. But its a very high tech good fake. I think it is real but crankymediaguys observations make it look strange...
I paused it as her head was going through and it does look very like she could have hit her head.
This has all the hallmarks of those ads -- the effects, the concept, the humor, and the guys who are way too proud of themselves.
It's interesting to note that the net stops moving at the exact moment the girl passes through it -- it doesn't sway or quiver. Is that the normal behavior of a net after the ball is dunked?
I didn't watch it in slow-mo or see any stills, but in my one viewing, the net did look a little suspicious.
I'm sure you could find someone who could fit through a basketball hoop (hell, I might be able to), but I don't think a couple of guys could throw someone into one with that kind of precision.
It's a complete optical illusion. They DO throw the cheerleader up in the air and catch her. However, she never goes "through" the basket, but is actually in front of it. The illusion is that she went through the hoop, but in reality, only her left hand brushes it to make it appear that she has.
While her feet appear to be going through the basket, her torso does not. (a little creative editing) The camera never shows where the group is actually located. (you don't see their feet) By positioning the camera far away, you lose the perspective of how close the group is to the basket.
'nuff said.
"This commercial -- for that is what it really is -- has the same kind of production values as the ads for videogames that appear to be "home video" but include bizarre special effects. You know, the ones where the kids accidentally turn mom into a goat with a sci-fi weapon, etc."
Yes, exactly. I thought of those ads, too, when I saw this one. They are for a video game called "Ratchet and Clank" and they are shot in the same hand-held style and feature impossible special effects. It seems probable that this was done by the same people and that it also features special effects (in other words, the girl didn't really go through the hoop). Nice job, though, you have to admit. The guys conferring before throwing the girl and the hand-held camera work are nice touches.
Net is probably rigged with a thread or they rotoscoped out a basketball going through it and layered her in.
The bump on the head is a nice touch.
Heh. If you 'grab and grope' random girls every single time you get the opportunity, you're going to end up in jail pretty quick.
Also, if she faked the head hitting the rim, she did a masterful job as a frame by frame examination shows that her head moves forward at the exact time the rim appears to hit her head. Much like the Zapruder film!
As to the net moving, you can see it follow her feet as she moves through the rim. As she drops through, you feet move to the right. The net follows her feet as she passes through. And for those of you asking about moving nets, because of the way they are designed, they do not move much at all after the initial motion. After a ball (or cheerleader) moves through, they become still quite quickly.
And my number one reason for believe this.....They are college students. College students are the only folks dumb enough to try this! And college guys are the only ones dumb enough to ignore the girl afterward!
Don't know if any prosecutors are reading this, but I think Craig just confessed.
I agree. Further, if it's a legitimate stunt, why not set up an extra camera or two at different angles?
this only can happen if she is passing by very close from the glass.
I also forgot to mention how I think it was filmed. The people were shot throwing the girl with no basket, then the basket was shot by itself and the two videos were composited and then edited to look more realistic. This should have been easy because of the indoor environment, the lighting is extremely controllable. There are other ways it could have been done, but this seems to be the easiest and fastest.
They could have done a better job on the editing, as it doesn't look very real in slow motion, but it probably wasn't a very big deal to whomever was working on it.
"i am a cheerleader and it is defintly possible for someone to do that.have any of you EVER been to a cheerleading competition?they do some crazy things and this video is like nothing compared to competiton...so yeah.its real."
Kayla, your logic is flawed. The fact that you have seen some interesting and/or dangerous things done during a cheerleading competition does NOT prove that THIS particular thing WAS done as it appears.
Have you ever seen someone do, in real life, what seems to be happening in this video? Even that wouldn't prove that it happened for real in the video, but it would prove that it COULD have happened.
This is why I strongly think that logic and critical thinking (along with media literacy) need to be taught in school.
Can this be done? You bet. Some of the more adept and light cheerleaders are able to flip on top of high targets (2 man high pyramids, etc.)
A hoop is just another target - IF you can get high enough and if the guys are the right distance... The girl looks up to see if she is far enough ahead of the basket because she knows that's her target. Her doubt is if the guys can boost her that high, not if she can hit the target.
Fact is, 4 guys who are not basketball players are able to boost an even tinier girl (she is very small) up high enough to do the flip, so long as she sets herself up to basically do a dismount on the hoop.
The physics of the piece is flawless, except for two things... One, I realized she clamps her arms down to slow her spin - but that was the real danger. I entirely expected to see her lose a finger... and yes, BTW that gets rid of the entire 'she hit the net on the way down' thing... She is looking at her feet and the target, not the left to 'tap' the basket... pulling the net at that speed is like grabbing a tree branch whie riding in a school bus... good way to dislocate something...
Dollars to donuts judging by her physical conditioning she's a stellar high dive as well. That plus cheerleading skill would make it entirely possible that she'd be able to straighten out for a straight-through...
The odds of a gymnast being able to do all of the right things on a fake is unlikely. If they know they are not going through a hoop, but just trying to make it 'look' like it, they would not be careful enough to get everything right. A whole lot more things happen when you know you could really get hurt... although if worse came to worse, she'd probably just try to land on the spring base and hope it didn't break...
And yeah, the one thing that is not fake is that she is HOT.
Fake? tough call... depends on what it's shot with... off the cuff, I noticed double rims in a few frames... trouble is, if this thing was shot with a MiniDV (which I believe it was, considering the amount of light in the frame with zoom) then fast movement of the camera will pick up the vibrations of the gym lights (try taking a digital picture of something lit up by flourescent light while moving the camera to smear the image and you will see what I mean..)
A MiniDV would also explain the ability to focus on the part of her body not swinging (torso, center of weight) vs the legs which are basically what is spinning her around. They smear the legs - you don't need PS to do that...
I'd love to hear the story behind this footage, and also find out if these folks got paid well for it...
In frame 6 you can see that the net is pushed to the right and extends down below her knees. In frame 7 look at where her left hand is. It would have to be sticking thru the netting the way I see it. That would have been catastrophic!
They should have had her hold her arms over her head if real or fake. I think I did see a reflection in the glass and I can't see any indication that see is not passing thru the hoop except for the hand position. Very impressive. Fake.
Follow their sight lines, though. They're all looking at least 5 feet to the left of where the basket actually is.
Good video editing...but thats all.
This is fake.
For those of you cheerleaders out there that want to somehow think this is real just because it is "cool", think about it.
You would have to:
a) stop your rotation from the tuck, would would be a pretty impressive slap in the face to the laws of physics, or
b) you would have to time your rotation like that of a pole vaulter or high jumper going over a bar so that your feet, legs, hips, torso, shoulders and head would rotate through the hoop. One problem with that. You get one shot. Either you make it, and get this cool video or you miss it and tear up your face so bad you wouldn't be recognizeable. Don't forget.. if you over rotate, you're going to have a 10-gauge wire hoop ramming itself through the back of your head. Woops, that didn't work... next girl?
It's a cool video that got people talking. But don't believe for a minute that it's real.
Look at how you can go frame to frmae without any blur up until the frames which would prove
if this was fake or not...once she gets over the
goal the frames go from every 10th of a second to
a full second or higher! Obviously they were trying to hide something. You can also see that
as her butt hits the rim, both of her hands are outside of the rim and would never be able to get back in at that speed...both of her arms would have been broken. What scares me is that young cheerleaders will see this, think it can be done, and get hurt or worse trying to attempt it.
1. No guys would be that irresponsible to put her at such risk
2. If she's anything like our girls, no way in hell she'd willingly try this. We had enough trouble getting them to leave the ground for basic stunts, they were so lazy...
Oh, and whoever said those guys are gay, YOU'RE AN IDIOT. How many times have you seen football players slap each others' asses? I agree, the guys here we a little over the top, but I think it was just all part of the act, the big celebration. After cheering 6 years, I think I've met 1 gay cheerleader, ever - most guys get into cheering for the girls, then get hooked on the stunting. I know I did.
Exactly. I didn't believe it when I saw it but I'm a Flash designer, I have extracted every frame with a special program. When you look frame by frame, her hands (especially the left) would have went through the holes in the net. At the angle she was falling and the way her hands are pointing, it's impossible that they would have passed through. THAT is a fact. NOT an opinion. It's right there in the frames. They should have had her hands straight up above her head. In my OPINION, the over-acting and script at the beginning of the short clip was pretty bad. They are acting as if they just decided to do all this in a few seconds of standing near a basket.
Saying it isn't real because of the way the net is bouncing or that someone wouldn't have thought about the physics of how to make it bounce in the right directions is hilarious. There are digital film students and hobbies going on with all kind of great looking stuff. I've seen it. It's just not your world. If you took this thread to the right forum, you would get a few different ways to do it. The software to set up something like this is getting cheaper and cheaper to do right at home. It's a very cool clip though. I'm just confused about why everyone would even question whether it could be done, with todays computer programs. I guess poeple here just haven't played with that sort of thing. Everyone just dubs things "photoshop". Has anyone here been to the movies lately? Look what can be done. ?? It doesn't take thousands and thousands of dollars to pull this off.
The reflection can be put anywhere you want. In fact, the old-school blue screen and lighting problems are gone. Really, they didn't even have to be at the basketball court.
First off, a commercial venture (or any group of reasonably intelligent people) would be VERY concerned about the potential liability if the girl got injured (the likelihood of which is high) on their behalf.
Let's look at this objectively: You're a company that wants an interesting piece of video. You can either throw a girl up in the air and pray that she goes through the hoop with no injury OR you can simply do what Tony is suggesting and FAKE THE DAMN THING!
Remember, all you really care about is the resulting video and the reaction it provokes. Why would you NOT fake it?
:lol:
Thanks for your perceptive view Thomas. Next time, I will shut up. With your wisdom you have taught me a lesson, stimulated my mind, and raised my awareness.
I apologize for my existence. Please, please accept.
Im 6'2 and weigh 64 KGs (Im an Aussie) which equates to around 140 pounds. I was a gymnast for 7+ years and moved from gymnastics to highjump and basketball when I got to tall and my skinny frame was never getting any bigger.
The quality is niether here nor there in my opinion because most crazy videos on the net are in low quality to help them spread quickly (thats not to say low quality doesnt help the fake rumours)
This is something I would perhaps try I remember setting up high jump matts and mini tramps and messing around like the guys in the half time slam dunk competions all the time in school. (those guys dive head first through the hoop all the time)
I would be worried that one of my fingers would catch on the net and her toes are nearly pointed enough to gaurentee a nice smooth entry and exit from the net. Her overall rotation path seems a little strange for me I would expect her to pop out of that tuck much earlier and pin drop through the hoop. If you also look at the frame before she is caught her arms are not by her sides they are outstretched and with the net allready pushed right its almost certain that her fingers would be caught by the net.
Hands up next time and a less convincing swish noise would help a basketball swish noise lasts for that long and she travels through the net for longer than a basketball.
I was still very impressed by it, just seems like its either a reasonable fake. or a very very lucky try at something a little stupid.
I the final thing that told me it was fake was she didnt seem at all impressed with her efforts the head grab seems very on cue to me if that was me i would be jumping around like an idiot.
Still very funny 😊