Add concert tour intro films to the mix of production disciplines that ad agencies are being asked to diversify into these days. Several prime examples have come to the fore in recent months, including Farmer’s Daughter, a short film from Saatchi & Saatchi LA, Torrance, Calif., for client Toyota Tundra’s sponsorship of country music duo Brooks and Dunn’s international tour (SHOOT, 5/9). Farmer’s Daughter was directed by Peter Darley Miller of bicoastal/international @radical.media and meshed the Tundra truck into an entertainingly comedic storyline in which shenanigans by Nix Brooks put his buddy Ronnie Dunn in hot water.
The latest in the concert tour genre is for country music star Toby Keith, an intro film directed by Kevin Donovan of Santa Monica-based Reactor Films and conceived by the core JWT Detroit team of copywriter Shanky Das and art director Whitney Jenkins under the Team Detroit agency umbrella.
But beyond having to be entertaining for concert audiences while smartly incorporating the Ford F150 truck into the storyline, this Toby Keith piece also had to promote Beer For My Horses, the upcoming theatrical feature in which he stars.
“There were a lot of items to hit in the brief,” related Das. “Cross promoting the movie through the concert film added another dimension to what we had to accomplish. Our approach was to tackle the movie up front instead of force feeding it into another idea or storyline.”
Thus the intro film puts us right on the set of Beer For My Horses, with Keith and co-star, comedian Rodney Carrington. Keith talks about what kind of movie he wanted to make, taking us through the process of what they considered–including a period film and a martial arts tour de force. We then see why those options didn’t work as we’re first taken to the period piece set in medieval times. Under attack by approaching warriors, Keith tells his knight-suited colleague Carrington to break out the catapult. Carrington’s incompetence means that Keith has to get it himself. He does so with a Ford F150 truck. But when Carrington tries to load a boulder onto the catapult, the rock’s weight causes him to tumble down a hill. We then return to the set of Beers For My Horses where Keith notes that clearly a period film wasn’t the way to go.
Similarly we’re then thrown into a scene from the proposed martial arts movie with Keith taking on a gang of menacing kung fu experts. Keith is winning the fight against all odds–but can’t overcome the bumbling of Carrington who inadvertently knocks him out in mid-battle by opening the passenger side door of a Ford F150 truck.
Finally Keith says they decided to go with a film that reflects who they are, which segues into the Beer For My Horses trailer which was tweaked a bit to dovetail nicely with the concert intro and the Toby Keith faithful in the audience. Including the trailer, the overall concert intro film is nearly six minutes in length, with Keith ultimately having two co-stars–Carrington and the Ford F150.
Michael Salomon directed Beer For My Horses, a comedy/action/adventure motion picture in which Keith and Carrington play lawmen who set out to save Keith’s kidnapped girlfriend from drug lords.
Donovan
Salomon had helmed earlier Keith concert intro films. But this time around, said Das, the agency had the opportunity to seek an outside director. JWT Detroit creatives gravitated to Donovan, in large part due to his Full Frame Festival promo titled “March of the Penguins” for Durham, N.C.-headquartered agency McKinney.
The promo’s premise was simply what if a great documentary like The March of the Penguins were made as an over-the-top Jerry Bruckheimer-esque action/adventure? Donovan brought that strange proposition to life with four adventurers deserted on a snowy tundra as thousands of menacing penguins march towards them. Taking the offensive, a guy pulls out a rocket launcher and fires at the lead penguin, severing one of its wings. This only serves to make the penguin and his followers angry and they fire laser beams at the humans, wreaking havoc and destruction. A message appears on screen to the effect that “some stories make better documentaries,” followed by an end tag for the Full Frame Film Festival.
Donovan directed the promo while he was at Los Angeles-based Form. He recently moved over to Reactor Films (SHOOT, 4/25).
Team Detroit
The JWT/Team Detroit creative ensemble on the concert intro film Behind The Scenes: On The Set Of Beer For My Horses included executive creative director Toby Barlow, creative director John Godsey, VP/senior art director Jenkins, VP/senior copywriter Das, director of broadcast production Carole Gall and senior producer Tom Robertson.
Tara Handley produced for director Donovan. The DP was Lukas Ettlin. Production designer on the job was Claudia Scholz. Brad Allen was the stunt coordinator.
Editor was David Trachtenberg of Jigsaw, Los Angeles. Colorist was Stefan Sonnenfeld of Company 3, Santa Monica.
