Writer-director Christian Schilling headed a team of commercial film students from the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg in Ludwigsburg, Germany, to make this branded spec short for Duracell. Schilling is an alum of SHOOT’s 2018 New Directors Showcase.
Titled Revived, this piece introduces us to Carl who was born with a cord on his back, on which you have to tug, serving to wind him up like a music box. As a young soldier he awakes on a rubber boat in the middle of a rapid river. Suddenly they are attacked and his friend Henry floats lifeless in the water. A race against time begins, while fragments of his childhood shoot through his mind.
In the end for our main character with his wind-up cord, the power of friendship and the power of the battery is the salvation. The power of friendship charges the main character like a Duracell battery.
The film–which went toward earning diplomas for its creators–was made over the past couple of years with two shooting blocks–during mid-2019 and then at the end of that year. Approximately 80 crew members and just over 100 extras were involved in the making of the film. Just a few weeks ago, visual effects were wrapped on the project and it was released.
Credits
Production/Creative Christian Schilling, writer-director; Simon Drescher, David I. Dincer, DPs; Christian Arnold, Daniel Kottirsch, executive producers; Jan Scheurer, production design; Laura Schaffler, costume designer. Editorial Ernst Lattik, editor Music Alexander Wolf David (wolfsrudelmusic), Peter Sainio, composers; Deutsches Filmorchester Babelsberg, orchestra; Meike Katrin Stein, orchestration. Sound Design hyve.audio Robin Harff, Floyd Fürstenau, sound designers; Johanna Roth, Foley artist; Max Hartstang, Foley recordist. Audio Mix Robin Harff, mixer. Postproduction Slaughterhouse Philipp Breidthardt, post producer. Color Grading acht.studio Maximilian Baule, colorist. Crew Austria/River David I. Dincer, underwater cam operator; Justin Braun, on-set VFX supervisor; Jeannine Bieri, makeup artist; Vanessa Kilchenmann, costume design assistant. Crew Germany/Village Michael Hessenbruch, production coordinator; Boris Katrev, additional VFX; Coline Cisar, costume design assistant; Paolo Celano, Jeannine Bieri, makeup artists/prosthetic. Casting Kastwork Ltd. Cast Agencies BCCreative Ltd, Katie Threlfall Associates. Cast Alex Hope, Angus Dunican, Oskar Netzel, Anton Krymskiy, Natascha Kuch, Gesine Hannemann, Anna Maleika
Tonal, the strength training system combining revolutionary digital weight technology with personalized, AI-powered coaching, has introduced its new brand platform, “Power Progress,” and advertising campaign developed in partnership with Quality Experience (QX), the creative independent agency founded by Ari Weiss.
Directed by Aube Perrie of Pulse Films (UKMVA Director of the Year 2023 & 2024, UKMVA Best New Director 2021 and Webby’s Best Music Video 2022) with visual effects from The Mill NY, this brand film contrasts how the heavy chains of the past still shape how we work out today, with Tonal representing the future of fitness.
In addition to the brand film, the campaign includes cutdowns ranging from 90 seconds to 15 seconds, with even the shortest spot clearly connecting the old and the new. French director Perrie’s body of work includes music videos for Harry Styles, Megan Thee Stallion, and RM’s “LOST!”
“Sports marketing has had a long history of breakthrough advertising,” said QX creative chairman Weiss. “We wanted to launch with an idea as disruptive as the product itself. Not an easy bar to live up to. Like any great idea the insight is dead simple but the execution is unexpected and riveting. Great sports marketing doesn’t happen without great sports marketers and the team at Tonal shared our ambition to make the marketing as disruptive as the product.”
