Ad agency Serviceplan and director Sune Sorensen via Big Kahuna Films collaborated on this BMW TV spot which tells a story about two brothers who reconcile during Ramadan, the month of forgiveness observed by hundreds of millions of Muslims annually.
Filmed in Lebanon during a two-day shoot, the "Brothers" commercial features Elie Mitri, a Lebanese actor Sorensen had spotted in a Grand-Prix award-winning film.
Sorensen shared, “The client and agency took a great leap of faith with me on this film. What started off as a 30 second commercial ended up as an epic 3 minute one-take, and it took a lot of courage for everyone to understand the value of that. I wanted to portray the film’s emotional development with a sense of immediacy by creating a proximity to the actor and his feelings of distress and turmoil while they happened. A pain that nor he, or we, could escape from because they appeared in the moment. This meant going beyond the natural boundaries of traditional commercials – to allow space for the internal process to externalize and to allow uncompromising authenticity with the characters. The strength of this approach became apparent almost the second we started shooting. The actors had room to truly convey their emotional distance and Elie could dig deep into his character’s feelings of remorse and resentment for not being able to reconcile with his brother during such an important month of the year–it was very hard to watch, even behind the camera.”
The commercial will be featured across on TV across the entire MENA region on Rotana Khaleejiah + MBC Drama (MENA) and Dubai TV. It will also air online for the GCC region, and on social media platforms (Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, YouTube). There is a full-length director’s cut (featured here) as well as 15-second TV trailers and one-minute cuts for social platforms.
In the director’s cut, the film features a famous song, “Say Something” by A Great Big World (it has several billion hits across social platforms and music streaming services). About the choice of song, Sorensen said, “I spent a great deal of effort getting this song. It meant the world to me. In fact, it so much so that I got in contact with Ian Axel and Chad King personally to convince them why their song was the only right song for me. Everything about this film came naturally to me, it almost spilled out of me, but I needed to feel the music in a way that was equally profound and instant. I adapted over 400 songs to the film during postproduction and we even composed several of our own but none of them felt right. Until I found “Say Something.” Not just because it was poetic, painful and beautiful, but because it told our story exactly the way I always imagined. The song’s emotional progression matched the narrative and actor perfectly, but the song was also meaningful on more levels. Amongst other, I found it symbolically fitting that many people know the song with Christina Aguilera’s voice–thus eliciting a sense of lost companionship similar to that of the story, but on a very personal level directly with the audience themselves; they will be anticipating her voice, but it never comes, and instead we get this powerful, solitary voice of a man in pain, exactly like our actor.”
CreditsClient BMW Agency Serviceplan Jason Romeyko, worldwide executive creative director; Wayne Fernandes, associate creative director, copy; Victor Farias, associate creative director, art. Production Big Kahuna Films Sune Sorensen, director; Patrik Farra, assistant director; Julie Beiruti, casting director; Niels Thastum, DP; Eddy Rizk, exec producer; Maya Abdou, producer; Claudia Ibrahim, post producer; Sonia Habib, production manager; Fares Corbani, Steadicam operator; Sarah Chaoul, art director; Missy Tohme, wardrobe stylist. Online & VFX Pixelmob Sebastien Leclerc, editor. Performers Elie Mitri, Emile Karaa, Elie Moussa, Joud Mahmoud, Rosie Bou Obeid. Music “Say Something” by A Great Big World
FOUR PAWS Teams With Catsnake, Animation Studio Bewilder To “Be Their Voice”
Global animal welfare organization FOUR PAWS has launched the “Be Their Voice” campaign. Partnering with specialist creative agency Catsnake and South African production and animation company Bewilder, the campaign sheds light on a cruel practice called live lamb cutting. The film aims to raise awareness and inspire international action, urging fashion brands and policymakers to ban this inhumane practice by 2030.
The stop-motion “Be Their Voice” film follows a PhD student, Jesse, as he tries to perfect his sheep translation software with the help of a young sheep called Sunny. The initially heartwarming story takes an unsettling turn as Sunny discovers what is soon to happen to her on the farm.
Catsnake felt that the best way to capture the true horror of live lamb cutting was to focus on storytelling that would engage the audience emotionally. Catsnake creative director Rowena Wyles said, “A lot of animal rights campaigns rely on sharing shocking visuals of cruelty, but we know that tends to stop a wider audience from engaging with the issue. Instead, we wanted to draw people in with humor and heart before delivering the shocking truth of the practice.”
Working collaboratively with Bewilder, the film was brought to life with a mixed-media approach; recreating the look and feel of stop-motion with the flexibility of 3D animation. The sets, props and lighting were all made in Bewilder’s in-house studio, and the 3D characters were placed in afterwards.
Ruan Vermeulen, creative director at Bewilder, explained the process: “We built a ‘realistic’ miniature farm setting with stylized and lovable CGI characters. Combining a vast range of skill sets, with a multitalented creative team, our goal was to create an animation... Read More