Three businessmen in a conference room routinely discuss stock dividends and profit margins for the just ended quarter. "Despite these obstacles, we’ve had a strong year with tobacco revenues surpassing expectations," says one of the executives.
Suddenly a clone of that man bursts from his chest. However, his colleagues continue to drone on about sales and expansion as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened.
More clones explode from the bodies of the businessmen until the room is filled beyond capacity, the windows shatter and an army of men in black business suits overtake the streets.
An aerial view of this growing army then gives way to an X-ray of a pair of lungs in which there is a growing cluster of cancer cells. A super reads, "As they continue to grow, we continue to die." A tagline then appears: "Undo Tobacco Now," accompanied by a sponsor ID for the California Department of Health Services.
"Growth" was directed by Dante Ariola of bicoastal/international Morton Jankel Zander (MJZ) for agency Ground Zero, Marina del Rey, Calif.
The Ground Zero creative team consisted of creative directors Court Crandall and Arty Tann, art director Shawn Brown, copywriter Greg Lane and producer Monique Veillete.
Visual effects for the spot were done by Method, Santa Monica. Method created the cloning effect by shooting the businessmen delivering their lines and then lensing subsequent additional takes of the clones aggressively contorting as if they were being expelled from the original businessmen’s bodies. Ariola wanted the cloning to feel like an amoeba was splitting, but with a struggle—as though it took a massive amount of energy to duplicate itself.
Jeff Scrutin executive produced for MJZ, with Nadine Brown serving as line producer. The DP was Curtis Clark.
The Method ensemble consisted of lead visual effects supervisor Russell Fell, executive producer Neysa Horsburgh, producer Justin Lane, visual effects artists Alex Frisch and Chris Staves, CG artist James LeBloch and visual effects junior artists Brandon Sanders and Carlos Morales.
The mono-monikered Katz of bicoastal Cosmo Street Editorial edited the spot. Colorist was Chaz Tucker of Rushes, Los Angeles. Audio post mixer was Stephen Dickson of POP Sound, Santa Monica.
