Fourth Down wins a Gold Lion at Cannes

Fourth Down has won a Gold Lion for Film Craft, Cinematography, at Cannes Lions 2025. It is the studio’s first Lion, and we are still a little stunned.

A film told from inside the helmet

The brief from Vanta Athletics was simple: launch a new helmet without ever showing it from the outside. Theo Marsh’s answer was to put the audience inside it. Every shot in the film is first person, from a lightweight camera rigged into the faceguard, so you see what a player sees and hear what a player hears.

That meant no coverage, no second angle and nowhere to hide. If a hit landed badly or the light went flat, the take was gone.

Shot during a real practice

Rather than stage a game, we joined a real practice session at dusk and let it run. Our DOP Ray Santos spent two weeks testing mounts, weights and lenses with the kit team so the rig sat under the faceguard without changing how players moved. The final camera weighed less than a phone.

We had about forty minutes of usable light. Players wore the rig in rotation, and Harry Coleman and Noa Berg kept the schedule tight enough that nobody waited for us. Most of what you see in the film happened once.

Finding the film in the edit

We came back with hours of footage that was mostly sky, grass and shoulders. Hana Kim built the cut around breath rather than action: the inhale before a snap, the noise of the crowd dropping out on impact, the long exhale walking back to the line. The grade keeps the dusk warm and lets the stadium lights flare.

“We didn’t want it to look like a helmet ad. We wanted it to feel like the last ten minutes of practice when you’re tired and the light is going.” — Theo Marsh

Thank you

Thank you to the players, who let a film crew into their practice and never once asked us to leave. To the team at Vanta Athletics for trusting an idea with no product shot. And to the jury at Cannes Lions for watching a film that is mostly breathing.

Fourth Down is on the Works page, and you can read Theo’s conversation with Shots about the shoot in our Press section.