Soccer Coaches Transform Into Orchestra Conductors for Prime

All of the intensity and emotion that ignites a soccer pitch has been transformed into gestures and symphonic sound for a short film from Prime Video Sports. 

The Amazon-owned live streaming channel tasked Paris agency Marcel with creating a piece of entertainment designed to lift Ligue 1, France’s top-tier professional soccer league, which is sponsored by Uber Eats. Thus, the “Ligue 1 Uber Eats Symphony” was born. It’s an original orchestral composition based on the body language of soccer coaches.

A version of the “performance” below serves as Prime Video Sports’ new opening credits sequence for La Ligue games each weekend. The symphony will also also play on jumbo screens in stadiums, and discussions are underway to make it available to the masses via Amazon Music.

The goal was to create an iconic anthem that will live in the hearts and minds of fans, like those of the UEFA Champion’s League or the NFL. But the campaign is also about settling a “score” with other European football federations, which dismiss Ligue 1 as the “Farmers League” for being too provincial.

Marcel CCO Gaëtan du Peloux and CD Jérémie Bottiau guided Muse took Muse through the process of creating original music based on coaches’ gestures.

MUSE: What was your exact mandate from Prime?

Jérémie Bottiau: We had to celebrate French soccer and do it while staying true to the values and ambitions of Prime Video Sports. Moreover, we made it our mission to settle an old feud with other European leagues: to stop considering the French Ligue 1 as the ‘Farmer’s League.’ To do this, we had to come up with something unique, vibrant and grandiose.

So, you chose to make an innovative piece of entertainment?

Gaëtan du Peloux: We wanted to surprise people. To shift mind about the relationship between Prime Video and football. Because French hardcore fans still believe that Amazon is not legitimate enough—not expert enough—to be the official broadcaster of French football.

Can you describe the inspiration and the process?

Gaëtan du Peloux: One of our copywriters had a passion for ‘bench-cams’—cameras that isolate the sidelines of the football pitch and showcase the coaches and their tactical instructions. When they showed us these images, they explained their idea of creating an anthem, but substituting an orchestra conductor with Ligue 1 coaches. Instead of writing music which is then played by an orchestra and a conductor, we’d start by selecting iconic gestures of coaches, and these gestures would inform the musical score.

What was the best part of creating the symphony?

Jérémie Bottiau: Every step was exciting. That included: getting footage of the coaches during a championship match, identifying a composer who would dare to take on the challenge of writing a piece of music based on the coaches’ movements, arranging the composition over and over again so that it would reach the epic dimension we wanted, and convincing an orchestra of 70 musicians and a choir to be directed by football coaches. And to do it in a setting worthy of the project’s ambition: the auditorium of the Espace Niemeyer in Paris.

Why was Saycet was the best music partner for this effort?

Jérémie Bottiau: He was crazy enough to say yes!. But mostly because he is both a talented composer who is used to innovative and ambitious projects. And also because he is a real football fan, and French football in particular.

It looks like you are attracting non-football fans, too.

Jérémie Bottiau: Even people who were not particularly football fans were totally excited by the project and the image it gives Ligue 1. Music really brings people together. We received many truly enthusiastic comments.

Any plans for an encore?

Gaëtan du Peloux: For us, appropriation is the best plan for an encore. Fans already made their own ‘interpretation’ of the anthem and shared it on social channels. We hope that fans will continue to do this and that this anthem will soon be part of French pop culture. We already have some other unexpected ideas in our minds to make a great 2024 follow-up.