This :30 consists of two separate vignettes, both depicting the extremes a young man will go to in order to protect the Sprint Yellow Pages, a book with a red—not yellow—cover that he holds sacred.
The spot opens on a professional golfer about to execute a trick shot—driving a golf ball through a copy of the Sprint Yellow Pages. The gallery watches in anticipation as the golfer releases his shot. Our Sprint book protector runs toward the phone book, yelling, "Noooo!" He gets hit in the chest by the golf ball, and doubles over in pain. An announcer provides the level of insight we’ve come to expect from television commentators: "That’ll leave a mark."
Then we’re whisked to the second scene, where a large garbage truck is parked curbside, collecting the neighborhood recyclables. A garbage worker throws a copy of the Sprint Yellow Pages into the back of the truck. As the back starts to close up, our obsessed man screams, "Noooo!" and hurls himself into the truck’s receptacle area, at which point the metal door closes behind him.
A voiceover, accompanied by a product shot of the Sprint phone directory, takes over: "Sprint Yellow Pages are worth protecting. No wonder they’re the best red Yellow Pages."
We return briefly to the trash truck, where we hear a knocking and a muffled "Hello?" coming from inside the vehicle.
"Golfer/Truck" was part of a two-spot campaign directed by Jim Zoolalian of Boxer Films, Los Angeles, for Valentine-Radford, Kansas City, Mo. John Clark executive produced the job, with Steve Jordan serving as line producer. Steve Kenneston was the DP.
The creative team at Valentine-Radford consisted of creative director/art director Bill Ost, copywriter Tom Stofac and producer John Pace.
Editor was Bill Abbott of Abbott & Editorial, Santa Monica. Assistant editor was Sean Leute. Abbott and Leute did the offline at Santa Monica shop MWP Editorial. Colorist was Dave Hussey of Company 3, Santa Monica. Doug Spilatro and Verdi Sevenhuysen of R!OT Santa Monica were co-compositors/artists/online editors. Audio mixer was Dona Richardson of AudioBanks, Santa Monica.
Brian Banks of Ear to Ear, Santa Monica, was creative director for both music and sound design. Banks served as composer and teamed on sound design with his Ear to Ear colleague, Mike Stone. Amy Lyngos executive produced music and sound design for Ear to Ear.
