Currently posted on our Web site in the "Columns" section is "Work In Progress," a look at two proposed campaigns designed to increase awareness of the Holocaust. SHOOT has launched "Work In Progress" as a periodic column that will explore upcoming spots and their genesis—and in some cases, get the word out in advance to help make worthwhile projects come to pass.
The latter certainly applies to the Holocaust-related initiative, which teams Arnold Worldwide, Boston, and Public Interest Productions, a Santa Monica-based nonprofit shop affiliated with bicoastal/international @radical.media. The campaigns are important in light of research findings which show that a large percentage of young Americans don’t even know what the Holocaust was, much less its place in history and its relevance to their lives today.
The two prospective campaigns would normally cost some $1.5 million to produce. However, via its relationships with industry vendors and artisans, Public Interest is in the process of paring the costs down significantly. But even at that, the production still requires funding. Toward that end, Public Interest has put together a pitch book, containing storyboards and conceptual strategies.
At press time, Public Interest Productions had been in talks with the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the Anti-Defamation League, among other groups, about attaching themselves to the Holocaust project. Though most of Public Interest’s past spots haven’t entailed such grassroots fundraising, pitching sponsor organizations is hardly a first for the company. This marks the third time that Public Interest has solicited funding for a specific project, the last example being "Roller Coaster," a spot from Mother, London, promoting safe sex, which gained inclusion in SHOOT’s "The Best Work You May Never See" gallery (2/21, p. 11).
There are three :30s in the proposed "People Like Us" campaign. In "Family Room," for example, we see a mom at home on the phone; in the background are her two boys playing video games. Suddenly, this slice of home life is shattered as uniformed troops break into the house, dragging the family outside. They and other families are lined up in the street and brutally treated. Other civilians gaze at the proceedings from a safe distance, ignoring the cries for help. The contemporary scene of those being victimized then dissolves into an actual photograph from the Holocaust era, documenting the tragic rounding up of innocent people for dispatch to concentration camps.
A modern-day teenage voice then relates, "The Holocaust happened to people like us." The spot concludes with an end tag featuring the logo and Web site address of a partner/sponsor organization.
The other three-spot campaign, "Reversal of Fate," links a lesson from the Holocaust to today’s society, showing that bystanders have the power to take action. "School Shooting," for example, opens on a pitch-black scene, but as the camera pulls back, the darkness is revealed to be a pool of blood. We then see that the blood is oozing from the head of a dead teenage boy lying on his stomach in a schoolyard.
Eerily, the spot then begins to play in reverse. The pool of blood dissipates as it begins to return to the boy’s head. In the background, we hear a student tell the principal that she heard that a couple of classmates were planning an assault and threatened to kill her if she told. Thanks to her intervention, the tragedy is undone, and we see the stricken boy stand up.
Supered across the screen is a summary of what we’ve witnessed: "Planned school shooting. Number of wounded: 0. Number of killed: 0."
A teen voiceover then urges, "Use your voice."
For more info, check out www.shootonline.com.
