Action sports and machines

Some brands do not sell a still life. A running shoe wants a starting block, a helmet wants a motocross bike, an energy drink wants a rider mid-air. The Action Sports & Vehicles row on the Direction step lets you name the machine the scene is built around and hands the rest — the move, the shot, the safety gear — to the Creative Director.

Twenty-five rigs in six tabs

The control has a banner of its own under + Add Director Controls, between the People & Performance and Framing & Composition groups. Press + and a category-tabbed grid opens in the controls panel. All shows every card; the tabs narrow it to Vehicles & Wheels (Bicycle, Motorcycle, Motocross, ATV / UTV, Car, Off-Road 4x4), Boards, Snow & Water (Skateboard, Snowboard, Skis, Snowmobiling, Surfboard, Kitesurfing, Jet Ski, White-Water Kayaking), Air (Skydiving), Strength, Climb & Track (Barbell, Climbing Wall, Starting Blocks), Sports Equipment (Boxing Gloves, Basketball, Soccer, American Football, Baseball) and Animal (Horse, Dog).

Click a card to add it. On statics the row is multi-select and the machines are dealt across your outputs; on a Cinematic Ad the pool is capped at five, one machine per concept, and a sixth tap is refused with a note. A machine is a held subject — an explicit pick locks it into the concept, while an empty row lets the director decide whether the story needs one at all.

What unlocks a machine

Two things gate the row. The first is Boldness: nothing here is rated for Safe, so the grid arrives fully padlocked until you move up. Signature opens the calmer rigs and Bold opens the rest; tap any padlocked card and the page jumps to the Boldness card that would open it.

The second gate is a rider. A machine needs a person in the frame, so if you have narrowed Frame & Product Interaction to product-only cells the cards read A machine needs a person in the frame and name the framings that fix it — Person as hero, Model Focus or Person supporting. Leaving framing on Auto is fine; the director frames the rider itself.

A recipe for a rapid action ad

1. 01

   Start from a sport-ready product

   Shoes, apparel, helmets, drinks and supplements all work. A product with worn or in-use photos on its reference sheet gives the director more to hold onto mid-motion.

2. 02

   Choose Static creative or Cinematic Ad

   The row is not offered on UGC, Cinematic UGC, Infographics or Product B-Roll. For a film, Cinematic Ad at 15 seconds is the sweet spot for one clean stunt.

3. 03

   Set Boldness to Bold

   The energy comes from the top of the step. Bold opens every rig and every action posture at once.

4. 04

   Pick one machine per idea

   Add Action Sports & Vehicles and choose one card for a static, or up to five for a film so each concept gets its own rig.

5. 05

   Match the face and the body

   Add the Emotions & Expressions (Action) row and pick Effort or Exhilarated; add Body Postures (Action) and pick Jump / Airborne or Sprint / Acceleration. Leave Wardrobe on Auto — the director dresses the rider in the gear the sport demands.

6. 06

   For a film, push the pacing

   Under Movie controls choose Front-Loaded pacing and Whip Pan or Crash Push-In in Camera Language. Hero throughout keeps the product in frame from the first beat.

7. 07

   Review, then generate

   Press Review Concepts or Review Film Concepts. Read the plan, check the rider, the rig and the product all appear, then generate the piece you want.

Terrain follows the machine. The director places a motocross bike on dirt and a snowboard on a slope, and if a chosen world argues with the rig, the plan notes it rather than forcing the two together. If the finished ad shows the wrong terrain, Fix & regenerate with the note is the quickest correction.

• Create05

  Expressions and body postures

  Twenty-one expression registers and forty-four postures the Creative Director can play within — how to pick a feeling, when a row locks, and why Boldness decides what is on the table.

  3 min readRead

• Create08

  Movie controls

  The film-only dials — duration, quality, soundtrack, Camera Language, Pacing and Product Timing — that shape how long a film is, how it moves and when the product enters the story.

  4 min readRead

• Create04

  Framing and the body

  Who fills the frame, which part of the body owns it, how the person poses and how the product appears — four rows that unlock each other in order.

  4 min readRead

• Quick starts04

  Your first cinematic film

  Choose Cinematic Ad, set duration and soundtrack, read the five concepts, approve the Cast and Location sheets and generate a story-driven brand film.

  2 min readRead