Comments on: Kobe Explains Miraculous Aerial Over Aston Martin

By: leeroy jenkins

leeroy jenkins — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 23:38:58 +0000

its just clever camera work and use of angles the car is at a slight angle coming away from the camera so when kobe jumps it looks like hes going over the bonnet but really the cars about a foot away from him and by the time it gets to the back of the car he probably does have to clear that but for a fraction of a second….i seriously doubt the lakers would risk their star player for a shoe advert if they didnt know he was in no danger of getting injured

By: geoff

geoff — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 03:20:25 +0000

In the real world in certain Kobe could leap over a speeding car. Stuntmen much smaller in size do it. I like Kobe said it’s Hollywood. There’s no way Jerry Buss would let his francised player do that plus Kobe has a young family he won’t be that stupid. Now Kobe skying over a inflatable pool with Weeman and a bunch of snakes for a dunk could be real.

By: detroitnavy

detroitnavy — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 23:44:18 +0000

Since this is the viral marketing topic I though I would virally market my good buddy JT the Brick. The sports medial journal.com just ran ran a March Madness tournament for sports broadcasters and JT won the whole thing. Proving once again that he is the best late night sports talk show host in America today.

By: Brooks

Brooks — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 18:29:43 +0000

I can’t imagine it wasn’t ’shopped. Having Kobe 10 feet away from a car going that speed - that would seem to be pretty dangerous. Who knows what could happen.

By: Read

Read — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 08:46:43 +0000

This stunt was possibly filmed in real time, with no digital editing involved. None was needed, because Kobe did not actually jump over the Aston Martin. It is tough to see on the YouTube video because the frame rate is about half the rate of TV. I Tivo’d it from the evening news, and if you examine the shadows on the ground, it looks like Kobe is standing closer to the camera than the car is by perhaps a few feet. By clever use of camera angle and probably a long lens, as well as the antics before and after the stunt, it is made to seem like Kobe was directly in front of the car. That said, had Kobe actually been in front of the car, the jump would have been successful. The only real question is, how many times did they have to try the stunt to get the timing right?

By doing some simple timing of the stunt and a little math, it is easy to calculate that the car was traveling about 20 mph, which is about 29.3 feet per second. The car is 14 ft. 4.5 in. long according to the Aston Martin web site. About 13 ft. of it can be seen in the frame of view. Kobe is in the air for about 0.9 seconds in the version I Tivo’d, which translates into about 26.3 feet of travel for the car. The car is just entering frame when Kobe leaves the ground, and is just leaving frame when he touches the ground again. With a 13 ft. frame of view and a 14 foot car, that makes 27 ft. so the numbers check. But the timing has to be perfect, so if he got it right the first time, he is incredible.

Alternatively, the Aston Martin could have been Photoshopped in later. That is so easy to do these days. But I don’t think they did. A little clever camera work, along with Kobe and his buddy doing a pretty good sell job is much more elegant.