IN THIS WEEK’S SPECIAL Report on SHOOT’s Agency of The Year—Boston-based Arnold Communications—Sarah Woodward’s profile of creative director Peter Favat (p. 45) jumped out at me. Favat, whose creative accomplishments include his work on the Massachusetts Department of Public Health’s Tobacco Control Program, has a deep commitment that transcends his creative responsibilities.
Favat’s colleague at Arnold, senior copywriter Annie Finnegan, explained: "The anti-tobacco account is very personal to [Peter]. A lot of people think of it as an opportunity, like it’s a great, high profile account. But with him, it’s like ‘Let’s shut the bastards down.’ His work is brilliant, but not because he set out to make a brilliant ad. It’s because he wants to send as powerful a message as possible. He really wants people to stop smoking."
This first came to our attention last year, when we happened upon "Last Goodbye" for the Massachusetts Tobacco Control Program. Favat served as both creative director and director for that ad, as well as five documentary-style spots that follow 29-year-old Pam Laffin, who began smoking at the age of 10 and contracted emphysema when she was 24. Laffin is awaiting her second lung transplant, but her chances of surviving the operation are poor. In "Last Goodbye," she reveals her greatest fear: "getting a call from her doctor who says that a donor lung has been found for her, because she would then have to say goodbye to her children, possibly for the last time."
The spot made SHOOT’s "The Best Work You May Never See" gallery (11/13/98, p. 23), which was both good and bad, in that "Last Goodbye" deserved the recognition but at the time seemed destined for a lack of widespread exposure. That’s since been remedied somewhat as Favat recently directed a one-hour documentary, I Can’t Breathe, about Laffin and the tobacco industry. Junior high and high schools throughout Massachusetts are already screening the film, and Favat hopes to gain interest from TV stations.
But more importantly, Favat now has the opportunity to take his anti-tobacco company and anti-smoking message to a national stage with Arnold’s recent win as the lead agency for The American Legacy Foundation account, valued at $150 million to $250 million annually. American Legacy was formed by 46 state attorneys general, and was born out of the settlement with the tobacco industry over state lawsuits filed against tobacco companies.
Besides providing meaningful nationwide exposure for the anti-smoking message, the American Legacy campaign offers another key difference for Favat. Whereas his previous efforts targeted varied demographic audiences, the national campaign is focused on teenagers.
That focus underscores how high the stakes are and just how daunting and important a task Favat is undertaking. Last month, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention announced that it expects to fall far short of its goal of reducing smoking to 15 percent of the U.S. adult population by 2000. CDC research concluded that some 25 percent of adults in America smoke as of ’97—virtually the same percentage reported in ’90. Among most adult age groups, smoking rates actually declined from ’90 to ’97—but the deciding rub is that the percentage of smokers ages 18 to 24 increased during that period. Indeed for the tobacco companies, marketing to teenagers and young adults has paid off handsomely.
Adding to the challenge, concedes Favat, is that in trying to convince viewers what to do, you’re often "talking to people who don’t want to hear about how to run their lives." Still, he’s undeterred.
"Once you dive in and realize what is going on … the extent of the corruption, the kinds of things [tobacco companies] are putting in cigarettes to make them more addictive, it just makes you really mad. There’s only one reason they do it—to make money."
Tim Burton Discusses His Dread Of AI As An Exhibition of His Work Opens In London
The imagination of Tim Burton has produced ghosts and ghouls, Martians, monsters and misfits — all on display at an exhibition that is opening in London just in time for Halloween.
But you know what really scares him? Artificial intelligence.
Burton said Wednesday that seeing a website that had used AI to blend his drawings with Disney characters "really disturbed me."
"It wasn't an intellectual thought — it was just an internal, visceral feeling," Burton told reporters during a preview of "The World of Tim Burton" exhibition at London's Design Museum. "I looked at those things and I thought, 'Some of these are pretty good.' … (But) it gave me a weird sort of scary feeling inside."
Burton said he thinks AI is unstoppable, because "once you can do it, people will do it." But he scoffed when asked if he'd use the technology in this work.
"To take over the world?" he laughed.
The exhibition reveals Burton to be an analogue artist, who started off as a child in the 1960s experimenting with paints and colored pencils in his suburban Californian home.
"I wasn't, early on, a very verbal person," Burton said. "Drawing was a way of expressing myself."
Decades later, after films including "Edward Scissorhands," "Batman," "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and "Beetlejuice," his ideas still begin with drawing. The exhibition includes 600 items from movie studio collections and Burton's personal archive, and traces those ideas as they advance from sketches through collaboration with set, production and costume designers on the way to the big screen.
London is the exhibition's final stop on a decade-long tour of 14 cities in 11 countries. It has been reconfigured and expanded with 90 new objects for its run in... Read More