Forget about spare change. This 30-second tour de force stop-motion animation/live-action piece has plenty of change to spare–literally, as we see piles of coins grow taller before our eyes, the payoffs to slot machine-themed scratch-off ticket games for the Colorado Lottery.
For the Lotto’s Sand Dollar Slots game, a voiceover informs us that winnings can be as much as $5,000. The jackpot pays out in quarters, which stack up to the height of a gumball machine, with quarter after quarter being deposited into the machine. Gumball upon gumball tumbles out, as the narrator states the obvious–namely that five grand can buy a lot of gumballs.
Next, we graduate to Hot Slots, a ticket that can return as much as $25,000. Multiplying piles of quarters ascend to the face of a parking meter. The quarters drop into the meter slot, buying time that isn’t measured by minutes but by years. The voiceover estimates that 25 grand can purchase about 50 years of parking.
Finally, the granddaddy of Colorado Lotto ticket jackpots–$50,000–can be won by players of Mega Slots. The payoff is a small fortune–actually it’s a lot of fortunes, as the quarters pile up and jump one after another into an old-fashioned fortuneteller machine like you’d see in a turn-of-the-20th century arcade. The fortuneteller spits out card after card, each with a different message ranging from love to adventure to treasure to happiness.
The voiceover intervenes to point out that winners don’t have to buy gumballs, parking time or fortunes. Instead “you can take your fortune and spend it however you please.” At that point, we see the quarters spilling into a children’s mechanical horse, being ridden by an adult cowboy in the middle of a desert.
A parting “product shot” shows us three rolls of Colorado Lotto tickets–one for Sand Dollar Slots, another for Hot Slots, and the third for Mega Slots.
Scott Ingalls of Acme Filmworks, Hollywood, served as animation director as well as live-action director/DP. Agency was Karsh and Hagan Communications, Denver.
The Karsh and Hagan creative team consisted of creative director Don Poole, art director Roland Leppek, copywriter Beckham Gazzo and senior broadcast producer Heather Pollock.
Ron Diamond executive produced for Acme, with Holly Stone serving as producer. Animator was Kevin Glick. Model builder was Donovan McLean. Digital supervisor/After Effects compositor was Michael O’ Donnell. Lead compositor was Nicolas Mermet. After Effects compositor was Scott Coleman. Matte cutters were Ged Bauer and Martin Wiltshire. Offline editor/postproduction supervisor was Acme’s George Khair.
Colorist was Michael Underwood of Post Logic, Hollywood. Sound designer/audio engineer was Andrew Vastola, with Paul Vastola also earning a sound design credit. The Vastolas are with Rocky Mountain Recorders, Denver.
Timothy Murphy was the principal actor, playing the eccentric cowboy who put his winnings into a mechanical horse.
