- Brand - Channel 4
- Spot - We're The Superhumans: Rio Paralympics 2016 Trailer
- Music Title - Yes I Can
- Artist - The Superhuman Band
- Master Rights - Universal - Decca
- Composer - Strouse, Adams
- Publisher - Warner Chappell
- Music Supervisor - Leland Music
- Ad Agency - 4 Creative
- Creative - Chris Bovill, John Allison, Alice Tonge, Jolyon White, Richard Biggs
- Film Co - Blink
- Director - Dougal Wilson
- Air Date - 14/7/16
Other networks have celebrated the summer of sport with stylish CGI trailers, but it’s Channel 4’s live action Paralympics offer We Are The Superhumans which emerges as favourite to top the 2016 medal table.
Directed for Blink by award-winning Dougal Wilson, this Broadway-styled song and dance extravaganza revisits Ratpacker Sammy Davis Jnr’s 1964 album track Yes I Can – and is available as a charity single through Universal’s Decca.
“Initially we wanted something gritty and defiant to follow up Public Enemy’s Harder Than You Think which proved so memorable in 2012,” says Channel 4 Executive Producer Shannane Lane.
“But then Abi Leland suggested Yes I Can and its joyful nature was so right.”
After a worldwide search for disabled musicians, wheelchair-bound Australian singer Tony Dee, Canadian drummer and thalidomide survivor Alvin Law and visually impaired British viola and saxophone player Gemma Lunt were picked to form The Superhuman Band which recorded the track at Abbey Road with noted arranger Guy Farley.
They feature alongside Team GB Paralympics stars, dancers and other high-achieving yet physically challenged members of the public, in a film which, Channel 4 believes, includes “more disabled people than have ever appeared in the whole history of British TV advertising.”
