For a director whose career depends on planning every conceivable detail, Andrew Lane is surprisingly comfortable admitting he doesn’t know what’s going to happen.

In fact, that’s exactly what he’s hoping for.

“We go in with the best plan,” he says, “and see what we get and adapt as we go along.”

The Washington Square Films director sat down with me to discuss why unscripted fan experiences and hidden-camera storytelling have become critical tools for breaking through in sports marketing.

Lane’s philosophy is unusual in commercial filmmaking, where every frame is normally storyboarded long before cameras roll.

But Lane has built a career doing almost the opposite. Whether it’s Lionel Messi appearing in a “Lay’s Crawl” campaign, Serena Williams surprising unsuspecting paddle players for Heineken 0.0, Steve Carell improvising his way through Lay’s “The Most Epic Watch Party,” Tim Howard turning up in an American Airlines World Cup campaign, or Thierry Henry knocking on strangers’ doors for Lay’s “No Lay’s, No Game,” his best work isn’t about executing a script.

It’s about creating the conditions for something genuine to happen.

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