Dark humor that plays outlandishly comical rather than mean-spirited marks “Factory,” a :30 for Starburst candy directed by Matt Aselton of bicoastal Epoch Films for TBWA/Chiat/Day, New York.
We open on a curly haired factory worker asking a colleague for a Starburst. The coworker tosses the candy over, but it falls into a vat. The curly haired guy reaches deep into the vat to retrieve the pack of Starbursts. However, it turns out the vat is filled with acid, which eats away his entire arm.
“Whoa” is his deadpan verbal response. Undaunted, he then places his remaining arm in the vat, only to lose that limb as well.
Witnessing all this, the coworker then rolls up his sleeve as he prepares to immerse his arm. A tagline simply reads, “Starburst. Blame the juicy goodness.”
This bizarre tale of trial and error–with no one learning from the error–was devised by an agency creative ensemble consisting of executive creative director Gerry Graf, group creative directors Ian Reichenthal and Scott Vitrone, copywriter Ashley Davis, art director Craig Allen, and senior producer Lora Schulson.
Jerry Solomon executive produced for Epoch, with Anita Wetterstedt serving as line producer. The DP was Jo Willems.
Editor was Gavin Cutler of MacKenzie Cutler, New York. Colorist was Tim Masick of Company 3, New York. Audio post mixer was Philip Loeb of Sound Lounge, New York.
Visual effects house was Ring of Fire, West Hollywood. John Myers exec produced for Ring of Fire, with Jerry Spivack serving as creative director and Greg Anderson as visual effects supervisor/head of CGI.
Principal actors were Juan Carlos Camberos and Brian Schlesinger.
