Don’t you hate it when someone’s cell phone rings in the middle of the latest Hollywood mega-blockbuster? There’s nothing more disturbing when you’re lost in the film or reaching your arm around your significant other. To caution theater audiences against ruining the moment for their fellow moviegoers, director Rent Sidon and BBDO New York have created "Dolls." The Pepsi sponsored :60-produced by A Band Apart Commercials/Los Angeles-seeks to address age-old theater distractions as well as the annoyances of the 21st century, and will be playing nationally venues that serves Pepsi products.
"Dolls" is a kind of movie-theater-cum-Dante’s Inferno where those who dare to transgress the societal norms of the film experience will be punished. The denizens of this packed theatrical microcosm are not mythological or historical figures but rather a group of dolls that seem to be a part of the Ken and Barbie family. In the trailer’s short vignettes on bad behavior, the public crimes assailed include smoking, trashing the theater, talking during the film, and forgetting to turn off cell phones and beepers.
"We wanted to have this low-tech Monty Python approach to it where there was this hand of God meting out just desserts for these different faux pas," explains Sidon, noting that agency art director Vanessa Soto, and copywriter Abigail Harmon had elaborately storyboarded the trailer. "It became a function of how we could pull it off and still keep the integrity of that low-fidelity approach."
Sidon explains that the trailer was shot to intentionally evoke the low-tech look that might have been achieved by a film student. "It’s a filmmaker’s effort to make his sort of magnum opus in this movie theater," says Sidon. "What we tried not to do was to step on our own jokes by adding another layer of decidedly bad technique over what should be someone trying hard to make this thing look as good as he could in his basement."
In one instance, a doll’s cell phone rings and she begins talking during the film (a voiceover provides the verbage while the doll remains stationary). A human hand attaches a pair of electrical clips to the phone, after which the babe’s inner skeleton is revealed in flashes as she is zapped. The hand also appears in the other etiquette vignettes, and there is a "reprise" at the end of the trailer to show that the dolls, despite the abuse, are still (mostly) intact.
Sidon hoped that attention to detail would make the trailer worthy of many screenings. Creating unique characters for each of the dolls was one strategy in this repeat-viewing quest. The doll lineup includes the punk rocker, the chic city folk, and the doll that Sidon describes as a "Swifty Lazar-type" who is "wearing Belgian loafers and no socks." While some characters are kissing, others are craning their necks to peer around other people’s hats. "We really went to task to create a broad spectrum of characters and weren’t afraid to try to push that envelope a little bit," Sidon says. "Not with the intent to offend but to say that there’s no more equalizing territory than a movie theater. Everybody’s there in their own sort of individual space, and that’s what this is about-violating other people’s space and being considerate."
Sidon praises Dan Castelli, owner/founder of Castelli Models & Effects, New York, who built the four-wall set at Broadway Studio, Astoria, N.Y., where the trailer was shot. The set was three feet tall to fit with the scale of the dolls, which were 12 inches.
Sidon acknowledges that the trailer’s aesthetic is not exactly something that Pepsi has done too much of before. "It’s not the classic, very high-end and ultrapolished Pepsi advertising, which is their stock and trade," he says. "I think it was surprising to a lot of people in that respect. But I think it communicates the message as well as any million dollar spot would."
Additional credits for bicoastal and Minneapolis-based A Band Apart include executive producers Lawrence Bender and Michael Bodnarchek, producer Adam Stern, and DP Pieter Vermeer. In addition to Soto and Harmon, BBDO New York’s Don Schneider was creative director, and Becky Friedman was producer. Colin Wolfe of New York-based Crew Cuts was offline editor, with Chris Keenan acting as assistant editor. Jay Tilin and Milan Boncich of The Tape House Editorial Company, New York, were, respectively, online editor and colorist. Tom Clack of Clack Sound Studios, New York, was the engineer/sound designer.
