A woman checks on a turkey that’s roasting in the oven. A red button then pops up from the bird, signaling that the main course is done.
Next we are in a courtroom where a man awkwardly puts his hand on a bible, and pledges to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. From his facial expression and body language, though, it’s clear he’s pretty much incapable of telling the truth. We notice that a red pop-up button has sprouted from his back. This witness is “done” before he even starts to testify.
We then get glimpses of other slices of life which share the common bond of a red pop-up button. A man enters a tanning booth, a lad walks up to a microphone on stage at a spelling bee, a man in a gym struggles as he attempts to lift a heavy barbell, a deer appears on the road in front of an oncoming vehicle. Each person and the deer then have their buttons pop up, signifying that they are either done or about to be done–the deer destined to be roadkill, the struggling, exhausted man straining but unable to hoist the heavy weight, the guy emerging from the tanning booth with a perhaps too well done tan, and the lad who’s presented a word that he has no idea how to spell, resulting in his being dismissed from the competition.
We even see a man and woman seated on opposite sides of a bed, their naked backs to each other. The guy’s back though has a button that has popped up, meaning that he’s finished, presumably long before the woman would have liked him to be.
And finally we see youngsters running a race, each one’s button popping up upon crossing the finish line. A tagline simply reads, “Done,” accompanied by the name of the sponsor, Optimus, the mainstay Chicago house which is in the business of finishing commercials and making sure that they are indeed well “done.”
Local airtime The spot, titled “Done,” came out of a contest initiated last August, the fruits of which were harvested late last month with actual airtime. “Done” debuted on Comcast in Chicago on January 22, and later appeared from January 26 to February 2 on TV in various Chicago area communities.
Production/post house Optimus and its marketing agency Scott & Victor, Chicago, devised and developed the competition with a call for entries issued to Chicago advertising creative talent with five years or less experience. The contest was an outreach effort to new up-and-coming creatives, offering them the opportunity to add to their reels.
There were two major prizes in the competition. The winning concept would be produced start to finish by Optimus and its in-house production arm ONE, which was launched last year under the aegis of noted ad agency veteran John Noble who came aboard in September (SHOOT, 7/25/08) after five years as senior VP, director of production/digital at Element 79 Partners, Chicago. Furthermore, Optimus would buy local airtime for the “done”-themed commercial, giving meaningful marketplace exposure to the work.
The creative brief asked for a spot conveying the concept of something being “done.” Those creative parameters elicited a slew of entries. Entrants were not told up front that the project was a promo for Optimus.
A panel of judges that included noted directors and agency creative directors ultimately selected a script by Jane Ackerson and Nate DeLeon of DDB Chicago. DeLeon wrote “Done” while Ackerson served as art director.
Creative directors for the overall project were Scott English and Victor LaPorte of the aforementioned Scott & Victor.
English described the winning team of Ackerson and DeLeon as “smart, funny, curious, meticulous–everything we’d hoped for. And so is the spot.”
Red shoot Alex Anderson directed for ONE at Optimus with Noble serving as executive producer/managing director and Matt Abramsom as content producer. The spot was shot on the Red digital motion picture camera by DP Matthew Santo.
For Optimus, the visual effects director was Glen Noren with Gretchen Praeger executive producing.
Editor was Randy Palmer of Optimus. Others in the Optimus ensemble who contributed to “Done” were senior colorist Craig Leffel, online editor Scott Yurks and music supervisor Joel Anderson, the sound designer/audio post engineer who heads up Optimus’ audio operation which formally opened last year (SHOOT, 5/9/08).
