By Robert Goldrich
A woman is seated in a beauty salon as her hair is being combed and blow-dried. However, this mundane scene is anything but, eliciting interest because it appears that her tresses are being tended to by an invisible stylist. We see the lady’s hair being teased, yet we are also being teased in that her hair seems to have taken on an animated life of its own.
The woman looks into the camera to tell us of her new health plan. “My company now offers Harvard Pilgrim, so I decided to switch,” she relates. “I heard some really great things about them but I never expected that they would call and welcome me as a new member just to make sure I understood my new benefits and how everything works.
“With all the new members they get, they still took the time to make me feel like I’m the ONLY one,” she concludes, at which point we see the unseen stylist appear out of thin air. Similarly, other customers are conjured up, sitting at other stations and being tended to by stylists.
An end tag contains the Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare logo and an identifying slogan, echoed by a voiceover, that reads, “America’s highest rated health plan.”
“Salon” is one of three spots in a campaign playing off the theme that Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare of New England provides personalized attention that makes each everyday person we see feel as if he or she is the only one around. Another commercial shows a school crossing guard at an empty intersection, with seemingly invisible pedestrians and traffic. The remaining ad centers on a construction worker who is holding one end of a ladder–the other end being held up by an unseen fellow worker.
Tom Foley directed the campaign via Independent Media, Santa Monica, for agency Hill Holliday, Boston. The DP was Robert Richardson, ASC, who recently won an Oscar for his cinematography of Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator. Susanne Preissler executive produced for Independent Media, with Linda Levine serving as head of production and Dominick Ferro as line producer.
The Hill Holliday creative team consisted of creative director Kevin Moehlenkamp, copywriter Eivind Ueland, art director Doug Gould, and producer Scott Hainline.
Editor/sound designer was Steve Hamilton of Mad Mad Judy, New York. Colorist was Chris Ryan of Nice Shoes, New York. Audio post mixer was Glen Landrum of Sound Lounge, New York.
Visual effects were done at Brickyard FX, Boston and Santa Monica. Brickyard’s ensemble consisted of lead visual effects artist Geoff McAuliffe, visual effects artist Mandy Sorenson and producer Kirsten Andersen. Brickyard did extensive rig removal on “Salon,” replacing a rig that manipulated the woman’s hair with footage of the male hairstylist. The woman was portrayed by actress Camden Singer.
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