No, this video of American football star Tom Brady making a perfect shot isn’t real
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Awed fans have been sharing a video of Tom Brady, one of the most celebrated American football players in the world, perfectly throwing a football into a throwing machine over and over again. This video, which a number of media outlets said was real, was actually made using special effects.
A video that’s been widely circulated on social media shows celebrity quarterback Tom Brady – who has won the Superbowl numerous times, most recently in February 2021 while playing for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers – throwing a ball to a football throwing machine. Each of his three shots lands perfectly in the machine, which launches it back at him.
Only “haters will say this is fake", claimed numerous accounts on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram that shared the video while lauding Brady’s talent.
Several media outlets, including Sports Illustrated and French media outlet RMC Sport, also shared the video, saying that Brady is "bringing together strength and precision perfectly during training camp". Some doubt was raised, however, about the veracity of this video.
Brady himself posted the video on his social media accounts, along with the caption, “Training camp starts this week. I’m looking forward to having some actual receivers again…," referencing the start of training for the upcoming American football season.
Where is this video from?
It just takes one click to check the authenticity of this video. In his post, Brady tagged the accounts of the people who made the video, @ari_fararooy and @shadowlion.
However, these two accounts explain clearly in their own posts that the video uses visual effects (VFX) and computer-generated imagery (CGI). The video was made by Ari Fararooy, a video artist who lives in Los Angeles.
Fararooy has made several videos in partnership with Brady, using visual effects to create an infinite loop of the quarterback throwing a ball, or to make it appear as if he's throwing a ball to himself.
Fararooy specialises in stop-motion animation, a technique that involves animating a series of still photographs to make immobile objects appear to be in motion. Fararooy also makes videos using a technique called "mise en abyme," where an image contains a smaller image of itself, a sequence that seems to recur for infinity. Fararooy made a name for himself in March 2014 with a video inspired by his trip to Latin America, where he chases himself across several iconic landscapes.