Campaign For Appealnow.com Extends Reach Beyond Its Intended U.K. Audience
By Robert Goldrich
Director Eden Diebel of Great Guns, London–who recently shifted his stateside representation to greatguns:usa (SHOOT, 3/11, p. 7), giving him sales continuity on both sides of the Atlantic–has attained a delicate balance with a campaign of Web spots for appealnow.com. The commercials are both humorous and serious, addressing abuses by traffic wardens in the U.K., which at times result in people being ticketed unfairly for alleged infractions. Indeed the darkly comedic spots address a real issue in the U.K. but do so in such an entertaining manner that their creative reach has virally extended well beyond England to assorted other countries.
In “Kicking,” for example, a man walks across the street and is suddenly tackled by a traffic warden. The male warden forcefully pins down the victim, who struggles to get away, but to no avail. Meanwhile a nearby female warden looks at her watch, waiting for time to elapse so she can slap a parking ticket on the victim’s car.
She does just that, then kicks the already pummeled man before jumping over his body, which lies in the middle of the street, and making good her escape with the other warden. A tagline advises people who’ve been wrongly ticketed to log onto appealnow.com.
Created by agency Nitro, London, and Diebel for the Appealnow.com Web site, the campaign also includes two other similarly themed spots. In “Bingo,” a gang of traffic wardens attacks a parked car. They violently jostle the car up and down until they successfully dislodge a handicapped driver placard–at which point they ticket the car and run off. The car’s owner then comes into view; she walks with a cane and implores the wardens to come back but they are long gone.
And in “Dead Cert,” a traffic warden tries to be inconspicuous as he approaches a car and places a ticket on its windshield. The camera then reveals that the car is a disabled wreck as it has crashed into a lamppost. The car’s driver has been thrown through the windshield. He lays motionless atop the vehicle’s hood. This horrific sight is of no concern to the traffic warden who takes off after ticketing the car for a parking violation.
The Appealnow.com campaign recently earned the People’s Prize, an honor based on votes cast via the Internet, at The Viral Awards, London. The spots were shot on location in London, leading to some incidents that underscore the public’s low regard for traffic wardens. During the lensing of “Bingo,” for example, drivers passing by hurled verbal abuse at the spot’s performers, thinking they were traffic wardens “bouncing” a disabled person’s car.
Diebel’s support team at Great Guns, London, included executive producer Laura Gregory and producer Polly du Plessis. Cameraman was Oliver Schofield.
The Nitro creative ensemble consisted of creative director Paul Shearer and writers/art directors Alan Cinnamond and Sandy Cinnamond.
Editor was Andy Phillips of Great Guns, London. Colorist was Steffan Perry of Framestore, London. Henry artist was Framestore’s Oliver Bersey, with Stuart Robinson serving as post producer. Audio post mixer was Jack Sedgwick of Wave Recording Studios, London.
The principal actors in “Kicking” were Charlotte Eaton, Henry Winkler (not the actor of “Fonz” character fame) and Dave Barret.
Review: Malcolm Washington Makes His Feature Directing Debut With “The Piano Lesson”
An heirloom piano takes on immense significance for one family in 1936 Pittsburgh in August Wilson's "The Piano Lesson." Generational ties also permeate the film adaptation, in which Malcolm Washington follows in his father Denzel Washington's footsteps in helping to bring the entirety of The Pittsburgh Cycle — a series of 10 plays — to the screen.
Malcolm Washington did not start from scratch in his accomplished feature filmmaking debut. He enlisted much of the cast from the recent Broadway revival with Samuel L. Jackson (Doaker Charles), his brother, John David Washington (Boy Willie), Ray Fisher (Lymon) and Michael Potts (Whining Boy). Berniece, played by Danielle Brooks in the play, is now beautifully portrayed by Danielle Deadwyler. With such rich material and a cast for whom it's second nature, it would be hard, one imagines, to go wrong. Jackson's own history with the play goes back to its original run in 1987 when he was Boy Willie.
It's not the simplest thing to make a play feel cinematic, but Malcolm Washington was up to the task. His film opens up the world of the Charles family beyond the living room. In fact, this adaptation, which Washington co-wrote with "Mudbound" screenwriter Virgil Williams, goes beyond Wilson's text and shows us the past and the origins of the intricately engraved piano that's central to all the fuss. It even opens on a big, action-filled set piece in 1911, during which the piano is stolen from a white family's home. Another fleshes out Doaker's monologue in which he explains to the uninitiated, Fisher's Lymon, and the audience, the tortured history of the thing. While it might have been nice to keep the camera on Jackson, such a great, grounding presence throughout, the good news is that he really makes... Read More