With the recently launched World Championship Giants campaign creating an important buzz, we thought we would treat you to a quick glimpse of the behind the scenes action, of this gargantuan project that took almost 18 months to complete.

The idea for the campaign dates back to late 2008, when the Turkish Basketball Federation / 2010 LOC and FIBA approached five renowned advertising agencies in view of a pitch for a promotional campaign of the 2010 FIBA World Championship.

Los Angeles based design and entertainment company Iconisus– active within the Hollywood movie industry – stood out from the rest, coming forward with five creative concepts of which two were chosen for the campaign.

The first was the Destination Turkey concept, which saw four host cities of Turkey on the horizon of a basketball surfaced planet, with the ball’s black ribs creating a pathway leading to the city. It was used as a teaser campaign to promote the World Championship during FIBA’s 2009 events, including the five Continental Championships.

The second of the two ideas featured giants versions of the world’s top players running, jumping and playing ball among some of the country’s most famous buildings and landmarks of Ankara, Izmir, Kayseri and Istanbul. The ‘Giants’ campaign was born.

A Giants campaign wouldn’t be much without giants, and so all the different parties collaborating on the project went in search of the world’s top international stars set to take to the courts in Turkey.

Following a great cooperation with all stakeholders that involved getting the green light from the National Federations of the stars, the NBA and, of course, the players themselves, everything was set for the first shoot.

The first photo and film shots were made during the FIBA Americas Championship in Puerto Rico in September 2009, involving four players from the countries which earned qualification for the World Championship. These players were Argentina’s Luis Scola, Brazil’s Anderson Varejao, Puerto Rico’s Carlos Arroyo and Canada’s Joel Anthony. Local photographer icon Jose Jimenez was in charge for this first shoot.

From then on until December last year, the cameras of Turkish production company Böcek Yapim travelled to locations that included Los Angeles, Toronto, San Antonio, and Milwaukee, to capture shots of Kobe Bryant, Andrew Bogut, Pau Gasol, Ersan Illyasova, Tony Parker and Hedo Turkoglu.

The final shoots were completed in early March in Utah and Dallas with Dirk Nowitzki, Mehmet Okur and Andrei Kirilenko posing for the cameras.

As you will see in the behind the scenes photo gallery, the images of the players were captured in front of green screens, with the lighting carefully set to reproduce the angles, intensities and the shadows of the different locations in Turkey.

Thanks to briefs and sketches of the planned frames, the players set up as if they were giants among the urban and natural landscapes of some of Turkey’s most famous sites.

At the same time, crews were sent on location to capture the ‘background’ images; the surrounding environments into which the Giants would eventually be incorporated.

With a long winter of sometimes unpredictable weather, many hours were lost while waiting for the perfect Turkish sky and adequate light conditions, but patience paid off as you can see in the end results.

With images of all the landmarks and the players recorded, all that remained to do was to incorporate the players into the environments they had posed for.

Following many hours of work spent behind the computers by editors and producers, the players and the surroundings were gradually brought to life, offering spectacular shots and special effects and setting up one Giant Get-Together!