This spec piece directed by freelancer Jesse Jacobs takes us to a billiards hall where a young man makes an incredible shot clearly due to other worldly powers that go beyond his dexterity with a cue stick.
Another guy witnesses the shot and immediately declares, “You’re that telekinetic guy.”
The man with mind-bending prowess denies the claim. “You must have me confused with someone else,” he says, as we see cue sticks moving by themselves in the background.
Further conclusive evidence, though, comes when our mind-over-matter gent starts pilfering Skittles from the other guy’s package of the delicious candies.
Though he doesn’t realize that he’s losing his Skittles, the man sticks to his guns about the telekinetic accusation. “Maybe I have you confused with you,” he says sarcastically as he then instinctively tries to shield his package of Skittles from the mind bender.
However, there is no protection as the telekinetic guy just breaks off the man’s hand without touching him. The hand holding the Skittles floats towards him and empties the package of bite size candies into his mouth.
Having just lost his right hand, the other man somehow finds consolation in the fact that his suspicions were correct. “I knew it,” he exclaims triumphantly.
An end tag contains a Skittle package and logo, accompanied by the slogan “Touch the Rainbow. Taste the Rainbow.”
Besides directing the spot via his Venice, Calif.-based Jesse Studio, Jacobs additionally served as its designer, art director, co-creative director and co-writer. He shared the latter two roles with Brian Nash who was at Draftfcb, Chicago, at the time and has since moved over to Maddock Douglas in Elmhurst, IL.
Line producers were Bruce Devan and Merilee Newman. The DP was Brian O’Connell.
Visual effects/compositing house was Eden FX, Hollywood, with Fred Pienkos serving as VFX director.
Editor was Bryant Wang of 89 Edit, New York.
Sound designer was Mike Farnan of Desiderata Media, Los Angeles.
Does “Hundreds of Beavers” Reflect A New Path Forward In Cinema?
Hard as it may be to believe, changing the future of cinema was not on Mike Cheslik's mind when he was making "Hundreds of Beavers." Cheslik was in the Northwoods of Wisconsin with a crew of four, sometimes six, standing in snow and making his friend, Ryland Tews, fall down funny.
"When we were shooting, I kept thinking: It would be so stupid if this got mythologized," says Cheslik.
And yet, "Hundreds of Beavers" has accrued the stuff of, if not quite myth, then certainly lo-fi legend. Cheslik's film, made for just $150,000 and self-distributed in theaters, has managed to gnaw its way into a movie culture largely dominated by big-budget sequels.
"Hundreds of Beavers" is a wordless black-and-white bonanza of slapstick antics about a stranded 19th century applejack salesman (Tews) at war with a bevy of beavers, all of whom are played by actors in mascot costumes.
No one would call "Hundreds of Beavers" expensive looking, but it's far more inventive than much of what Hollywood produces. With some 1,500 effects shots Cheslik slaved over on his home computer, he crafted something like the human version of Donald Duck's snowball fight, and a low-budget heir to the waning tradition of Buster Keaton and "Naked Gun."
At a time when independent filmmaking is more challenged than ever, "Hundreds of Beavers" has, maybe, suggested a new path forward, albeit a particularly beaver-festooned path.
After no major distributor stepped forward, the filmmakers opted to launch the movie themselves, beginning with carnivalesque roadshow screenings. Since opening in January, "Hundreds of Beavers" has played in at least one theater every week of the year, though never more than 33 at once. (Blockbusters typically play in around 4,000 locations.)... Read More