Volume 37
Let's get ready to rumble. Hopefully Michael Buffer doesn't sue us for that...
The latest volume of Cut Culture is racing in and landing flush – and in case you haven't picked it up from those rather laboured references, it's a sport special this month… but with a twist.
The lines between sport and entertainment are blurring. So, from boxing bravura to F1 strategic supremacy, from remote-control cars to close-control Hammers, we're taking a look at some of the ways to score big in sport's new era of production.
EDITOR’S PICK
KNOCKOUT: THE SWEET SCIENCE OF SELLING A FIGHT
The rise of influencer/celebrity boxing over the last few years has changed the game in terms of production. One thing we’ve learned: for the casual fan, the worst part of a fight is often the fight itself. We care more about stories and characters than jabs and uppercuts. We don’t want sport, we want theatre. And that’s precisely what Riyadh Season’s ‘The Last Crescendo’ video for the recent Bivol v Beterbiev rematch delivered – in an entirely literal sense.
Where boxing promos often rely on tried-and-tired tropes – grit, determination, perseverance, biting down on the gumshield, blah blah etc. - this film goes hard on cinematic storytelling. From curtain-up to exit-stage-left, the viewer is taken through a three-act production with the drama of the fight at its heart. The staging, soundtrack and choreography all combine to create a sense of urgency and grandeur, transforming the bout from just another fight into an unmissable event. Much of the credit goes to the director, Alan Masferrer, whose artfully imaginative style and deft control of pacing raised the stakes and built the drama to its ultimate apotheosis. The title promised a crescendo, and it didn’t disappoint. Encore.
When the likes of KSI and the Paul brothers inserted themselves into the sport, professional boxing was left with two choices: puritanically denigrate the entertainment era or embrace the chaos. Turki Alalshikh, Riyadh Season and DAZN have danced on that line with the footwork of a world champ, investing heavily in high-concept, high-budget content that can appeal to a new generation of fans without pissing off the purists. Guy Ritchie’s film for AJ vs. Dubois stands out in the memory, as does the horror-show masterpiece for Usyk vs. Fury 2 - the first comment on which reads, “This promo is better than trailers of movies nowadays.” Exactly. And all it took was some careful planning, strategic thinking, and bold production… plus literally bottomless amounts of money. Who knew?
There’s a broader lesson. Big blockbuster promos like The Last Crescendo fly in the face of prevailing wisdom that audiences have the attention spans of gnats and can only engage with short, sharp, snackable content. Make no mistake, that plays a role too – but that doesn’t mean it’s all audiences want. There’s also room for rich, deep, impactful storytelling. To denude oneself of long-form formats capable of building entire worlds around athletes would represent an act of strategic seppuku - particularly when you’re marketing fighters who don’t speak English as a first language and are unlikely to rock the mic to hype the fight in a more traditional press conference-based model.
The Rubicon has been crossed, and a new standard has been set for fight sports promo. Now it’s up to brands, platforms, media partners and athletes in the space to keep up. Innovate or stagnate. The stakes have never been higher. How do you think we got our name?
PRODUCTION NOTES: F1 O2 EVENT
DRIVE TO THRIVE: THE RISE OF F1
Formula 1. Speed is quite literally the name of the game. It isn’t exactly a sport you’d associate with patience. But over the last few years we’ve witnessed F1 and some of execute a long-term, slow-burn brand building strategy to perfection. Now, they’re reaping the rewards – and their 75th anniversary live event at the 02 this month is a testament to that.
The event didn’t just break F1’s previous live viewership record – it smashed it into smithereens to such a degree that everyone was forced to ask if the previous numbers weren’t some sort of mistake. 4.6 million total viewers were amassed across YouTube’s live broadcast – giving the comparatively-piddly previous record of 289,000 an inferiority complex. Yes, it matters.
The two-hour show featured all 20 drivers revealing the 2025 F1 car liveries, supported by musical acts and celebrity appearances, and broadcast for free in a barrage across all owned social channels. The opening monologue delivered by host Jack Whitehall to a star-studded audience provided a microcosmic case-in-point nod to the genesis of the sport’s surging popularity. It wasn’t an in-depth analysis of athletic excellence – it was a prodding excavation of all the off-track drama and developing narratives that have turned casual fans into diehard supporters. Remember when we said we want theatre, not sport? We weren’t just talking about boxing.
Formula 1 have been investing in constructing narratives around their sport. Drivers have become characters, races have become stories, and BTS has become centre-stage. Drive to Survive is the most obvious and infamous example, but it is not the only one. This has been an all-fronts assault to take a sport previously associated with middle-age, brown shoe- wearing, real ale-drinking, Jeremy Clarkson acolytes in their 40s and embedding it into contemporary culture. That’s why more young people than ever are flocking to F1 in their droves despite fewer of their cohort watching sport overall.
The savvy bird catches the worms. Audiences – and particularly younger audiences - demand and expect entertainment that goes beyond just the event. And that doesn’t mean platitudinous post-match analysis; it means more content, more BTS, more access, more intimacy, more drama. The traditionalists (read: dinosaurs) who don’t deliver on this are in danger of sacrificing ever more market share to the sports giving viewers a reason to care. It’s no coincidence that Richard Masters is dropping strong hints about a Netflix-style streaming service for the Premier League that may or may not be in the works…
IN CONVERSATION: ALAN MASFERRER
Alan Masferrer is an award-winning music video, fashion film and commercial director based in Barcelona… and he also happens to be the bloke who directed The Last Crescendo. We sat down with him to get his hot takes, industry insights and production prognostications.
HSF: How did you break into the industry?
Alan: I started by shooting music videos for my own band with a cheap camera I bought for €300 and naturally transitioned into music videos in the UK and then commercials abroad.
HSF: What inspires you?
Alan: Inspiration usually comes from somewhere I can’t quite describe, but I’m profoundly interested in what resides within us at an unconscious level. I try not to rationalise too much so I don’t ruin the process. Our minds are full of unexplored areas, and it’s just a matter of letting our instinct work.
HSF: What was the biggest challenge you had to overcome for ‘The Last Crescendo’?
Alan: The production was extreme on so many levels, with just eight days of prep between the job award and the shoot. Then, the shoot became much more complicated than expected, and we had to re-envision the entire film after the first edits. This led us to the second phase of the process, where we essentially re-imagined the film using all the post-production resources at our disposal, even though we had only a few weeks left.
HSF: What’s the weirdest thing anyone ever said to you on set?
Alan: Not sure if it was the weirdest one, but once I was asked to stop the shoot and wait in a room for hours without further explanation. Nobody ever explained why…
HSF: Is AI a production a friend or foe?
Alan: AI is a tool, and I’m very happy to use it as such. I find it especially useful in some prep processes and for VFX.
HSF: What’s the one thing we should be talking about more?
Alan: Philosophy. I mean it. We’re overwhelmed by so much superficial stimulation nowadays that our brains are getting lazier and lazier. We need to use them more.
THROUGH THE LENS: MCLAREN X CHROME
Lando Norris. Oscar Piastri. We’re not playing around… actually, that’s exactly what we’re doing. You’ve seen them fly round corners at 180mph, but how will Team McLaren handle a toy car? (Spoiler: not quite as well). We put them through their paces. Here’s a little BTS look...
CAMPAIGN: WEST HAM FC X EVA AIR
3 Hammers, 2 ball-launchers, 1-challenge: ping the EVA Air balls in the net. We headed down to Rush Green to put some West Ham’s finest to the test.
With a team of launchers positioned around the pitch, balls were flying in from all angles. Each Player had five chances to score, starting off easy then ramping up to a crescendo of our own as balls were launched high in the sky to give our Hammers the chance to take off, show off their aerial control, and smash a volley in the onion bag.
We adopted a mixed approach, merging high-energy, gamified content with dynamic AR graphics and drone shots for that epic aerial perspective – all interspersed with candid, behind-the-scenes moments to capture the players having fun, sharing banter, and showing their competitive edge (especially Vlad, as it turns out).
The winner? *Insert Jimmy Bullard catchphrase here*.