While comedy has clearly been king in recent spot industry competitions, there’s been a departure from that norm as highly creative, poignant approaches to serious subject matter have proven to be prevalent and relevant in our first annual Best of "The Best Work You May Never See" Special Report.
Three of the top five entries—as selected by SHOOT staff from a field of 88 spots in "The Best Work You May Never See Gallery" thus far in calendar year 2000—were sobering conceptual pieces. There was the stark simplicity of child-like colored drawings in a Safe Storage of Hand Guns PSA. By sharp contrast, an Ad Council PSA used a slow morph to—literally—show the face of violence, raising questions about the lessons we impart to our kids. And stitches in human flesh mapped out an articulate case for supporting the Doctors Without Borders organization.
Meanwhile, the remaining two SHOOT picks for The Best of The Best registered on the comedic scale via offbeat premises. A dot-com mortuary service commercial offered a darkly humorous series of tailor-made funerals. Also in the dot-com arena was a mesh of soccer and zombies that underscored how people could link disparate interests in cyberspace.
But whether humorous or movingly serious, all five selections share a common bond. They are spots that are creatively worthwhile, yet haven’t had the benefit of widespread U.S. exposure. For the past three years—and counting—The Best Work You May Never See gallery has spotlighted deserving work that otherwise might be relegated to obscurity: Spec spots, pro bono PSAs, local, regional and foreign commercials, test ads, even work that was produced but never aired. The gallery has helped to uncover new talent and to give recognition to both established and up-and-coming artisans for their creative and filmmaking prowess, often exercised within severe budgetary limitations. SHOOT remains committed to the gallery as a means to showcase the best that advertising has to offer. Even if circumstances have kept work out of sight, that’s no reason for it to be out of mind. So enjoy the Best of "The Best Work You May Never See" for 2000. As always, we welcome your feedback.
"Becoming A Man"
Being aware of and sensitive to the messages we impart to our kids represent the conceptual underpinning of "Becoming A Man," a PSA promoting the National Campaign Against Youth Violence. Directed by Bob Giraldi of bicoastal Giraldi Suarez Productions, the :30 opens on a man who talks as if he’s trying to mentor a youngster.
"There isn’t any real man out there that hasn’t been in a fight," relates the man. "You’ve gotta stand your ground. You’ve gotta be tough. That’s how you earn respect."
As the man speaks, subtle changes can be seen in his face. His voice and appearance become younger, and then the transformation is complete: He is a teenage boy, presumably the one he was trying to teach a lesson about manhood. The boy continues the lecture started by his elder: "You’ve gotta get the first punch in. Then you go for the weak spots—the nose, the throat. And when you really want to hurt him, you give him a kidney punch like this. Pow. Pow. Pow."
A super then appears across the screen, accompanied by a voiceover: "As adults, we need to be careful about the lessons we teach."
The Ad Council-sponsored PSA is then tagged with the National Campaign Against Youth Violence logo, a toll-free phone number (888-544 KIDS) and a Web site address (www.NoViolence.net).
"We felt we had a very powerful idea, but one that hinged on getting great performances from the talent—and on the flawless execution of the effects," said producer Rob Thomas of FCB, San Francisco. "We call it a morph, but it’s not a simple morph, and it had to occur so seamlessly that you don’t realize it’s happening until it’s done."
Eliciting the realistic performances was the province of Giraldi. But effects considerations came into play from the outset, meaning that visual effects supervisor Loni Peristere and Flame artist Verdi Sevenhuysen of R!OT, Santa Monica, had to be active participants in the project early on. "We got involved even before casting to discuss how certain similarities and dissimilarities between the pair of actors would help or not help," said Sevenhuysen. "Certain hair styles, for example, might be distracting, drawing attention from what was happening with the eyes and nose. Ideally, the actors’ facial characteristics needed to be proportionally the same—otherwise the eyes or nose might ‘swim’ during the morph."
For this spot—and another in the same vein, in which a gung-ho hockey coach screams for blood as he morphs into a teen—the older actor was shot first. Peristere attended the shoot and assisted Giraldi in positioning the actors to ensure a near-perfect match. During post at R!OT, the sync was perfected by editing and repositioning the images to align lip and eye movements. Subtle differences in lighting and shadows also had to be adjusted to help make the morphs’ transition believable.
The audio post was done at POP Sound, Santa Monica, where engineer/mixer Peter Rincon created complex "morphs" of his own to blend the older and younger actors’ voices. According to Rincon—who also served as sound designer—a blend might have been achieved via a simple cross-fade, but that would have made the transition too obvious. Instead, Rincon deployed leading-edge sound tools to affect natural changes in nuance that were reflected in the pitches of the two tracks. He ultimately produced 50 different dialogue tracks for each spot, with each track pitched slightly differently from the next. "It gave me something analogous to a palette of voice tracks," related Rincon. "Where initially I had only two ‘colors’ to work with, I now had fifty. It allowed me to make the changes seem imperceptible."
Although morphs are now fairly standard visual effects, typically they take place very quickly—in two or three seconds—to keep viewers from noticing imperfections. By sharp contrast, the morphs in these PSAs last nearly 30 seconds. "They were, by far, the longest morphs I’ve ever done," recalled Sevenhuysen, who added, however, that the length of the morph adds to the impact of the spots’ serious message. "The change is so subtle, it’s almost subliminal. You watch it without really being aware that anything has happened. You find yourself suddenly watching a kid without realizing how it happened, or that there has been a severe change."
The agency team consisted of creative director Peter Angelos, copywriter Betsy Decker, art director Mary Ann Saltonstall, and producer Thomas.
Giraldi’s support team included executive producers Debbie Merlin and Patti Greaney, and producer J.P. Greaney. Both spots were shot at GMT Studios, Culver City, Calif., by DP Eagle Egilsson.
R!OT served not only as the visual effects house but also as the editing and post facility. The R!OT ensemble included editor Karl Kirshenman, colorist Clark Muller, the aforementioned Sevenhuysen and Peristere, executive producers Carl Seibert and Steve Schofield, and producer D. Todd Davidovich.
The PSAs debuted during the week marking the one-year anniversary of the Columbine High School tragedy. The spots remain available for TV stations to run on a pro bono basis.
"Borderline"
At first glance, one might tend to turn away from the sight of stitches closing a wound in human flesh. But this bit of suturing instead piques viewers’ curiosity. The lightning-quick scenes command attention. Bomb-like, muffled blasts of sound contrast with stately and encouraging instrumental music. Through a confusion of blurred, then focused, images and jagged flashes of light, the pattern of the wound emerges. Calmly, methodically, the sewing continues, the stitches following the odd curves of the gash. Then, faintly, tattooed words become visible on the skin.
An attentive observer will first make out the name of a country: Kosovo. As the mending concludes, the camera pulls back. We see that the stitching maps the borders separating Kosovo, Albania and Macedonia.
The cartography speaks volumes. The surgery is helping to heal the torn borders between countries. The map sewn on its fleshlike canvas figuratively represents what the sponsoring organization—Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders)—is all about. The Nobel Peace Prize-winning group, headquartered in France, provides medical care to hot spots throughout the world during times of warfare and natural catastrophe.
Once the full map is seen on screen, a supered Doctors Without Borders ID appears on the bottom right corner of the picture.
Titled "Borderline," this :30 was directed by Marcel Langenegger of bicoastal/international Propaganda Films for agency Advico Young & Rubicam, Zurich, Switzerland. Langenegger’s support team at Propaganda included: Colin Hickson, VP, commercial division; Trevor Macy, COO/head of production; executive producer Shelly Townsend; producer Salli Shrewsbury; and production supervisors Diana Vance and Sara Barrett. The spot was shot by DP Scott Galinsky. Mike Bell was first assistant director.
The core creative duo for Advico Young & Rubicam consisted of creative director Martin Speilman and producer Michela Truemepi.
The spot was edited by Fernando Villena of Brass Knuckles, Venice, Calif. Michael Berk and Bond Schoeffel served as assistant editor and producer, respectively, for Brass Knuckles. Colorist was Arnold Ramm of Pacific Data Post, Santa Monica. Audio mixer was Eric Ryan of RavensWork, Venice.
Venice-based Machine Head contributed to the project via composer Chris Neilman, sound designer Chris Smith and producers Gabrielle Dotson and Vicki Melanson.
Doctors Without Borders was launched in 1971 by a group of French doctors who had worked in the Biafran war. The doctors felt that aid organizations were at times too slow to bring medical relief and were hampered by restrictions that kept them from denouncing abuses and injustices. The group’s first humanitarian effort was to treat earthquake victims in Nicaragua in ’72. It now sends approximately 2,000 people a year to provide immediate medical care to war refugees and victims of natural disasters, famine and diseases such as meningitis in Nigeria, tuberculosis in Eastern Europe and AIDS in Thailand.
The Nobel Peace Prize was bestowed upon the organization in October ’99. The award recognized not only the medical attention provided by the group, but also its ability to deal with the politics of providing aid and helping to make sure that, despite those politics, medical and nutritional relief reached victims in a timely manner.
"Go Your Own Way"
Finally a topic has emerged that’s off limits to even that famed brand of irreverent British humor: Death. Though currently airing on Holland television and in movie theaters in South Africa, Holland and Sweden, burymeright.com’s "Go Your Own Way" has been rejected by the BACC (the U.K. equivalent of the FCC in the U.S.) and England’s Cinema Authority.
The spot opens with four pallbearers carrying a casket over their heads; the oddity being that the casket has been cut into two halves, each carried by a pair of pallbearers. The front end of the lead half is being hoisted by two attendants; the back end of the second half is being held by the other two. But who’s holding up the middle? In between the half-caskets is thin air; and beneath them is a supered identification of the dearly departed, which serves as a simple explanation: "Magician’s assistant."
The next scenario shows a body being disposed of as if it were yesterday’s trash; stuffed in a zip-lock-like bag and thrown into a grave. A super tells us the deceased was a "dustman." (Translation: garbage man.)
We then see a procession of racecars speeding through the mortuary grounds. The super: "Rally driver."
Then the action switches to inside a funeral parlor, as grieving survivors pay their last respects to a man who’s in an open casket. The only departure from the norm is that the open part of the casket is slightly below the belt line. A woman pulls off her dark sunglasses and looks down admiringly. It turns out the Grim Reaper has claimed the life of "a porn star."
Finally, an elegant casket is seen moving slowly down an assembly line, accompanied by matching luggage and other parting gifts. The body is that of a "game show host."
The spot is tagged with the super: "Burymeright.com. Go your own way."
The burymeright.com Web site helps arrange any funeral or burial request. Its ad message was delivered by the directing team of Liam Kan and Grant Hodgson—a.k.a. Who?—of London production house Great Guns. Who? is repped stateside by bicoastal Basecamp Entertainment, a company in which Great Guns’ managing director Laura Gregory is partnered. The Great Guns support team for Who? on "Go Your Own Way" included executive producer Gregory and producer Sheridan Thomas. The spot was shot on location in London by DP Nicolas Bruel.
The BMP DDB creative ensemble consisted of copywriter Clive Pickering, art director Neil Dawson and producer Howard Spivey.
The editor was Rick Waller of Red Square Editing, London. Stephan Perry and Ollie Bersey of Framestore, London, served as colorist and Henry artist, respectively. Audio mixing was done at a pair of London facilities: Grand Central and Tape Gallery.
The sound designer was Dominic Gibbs of Noisebox, London. The dot-com client bought music from KPM Publishing, London; the song, composed by J.L. Johnson, was the theme for the popular U.K. television show, This Is Your Life.
"Kalie"
A story—told by a child via hand-drawn, brightly colored pictures—proves poignant, memorable and heart-wrenching.
The :30 starts with the crayoned sketch of a smiling little girl in a vivid pink dress. "Kalie was my baby sister. She loved pink," a youngster’s voice begins. The first clues that we’re not about to hear the happy tale of a play day are the use of past tense, and the numbness in the narration.
The camera pans from another drawing of Kalie, this time with her dolls, and with her older sister. "We were playing with her dolls," the voice continues.
Next we see, in a child’s perspective, the drawing of an end table with a lamp on top—and a gun inside. "I found a gun in the drawer. It went off," relates the girl.
The artist’s renditions are now of Kalie being shot, then lying on the floor, with blood on her pink dress, a frown on her face and Xs for eyes. "I made Kalie go away," the surviving child laments. Finally we see a drawing of the older sister—only this time, her image is nearly obliterated by scrawls of black crayon. "I hate me," concludes the narrator.
A super then fills the screen, reading, "An unlocked gun can be the death of your family."
A final supered message follows: "Please lock up your gun." Appearing below are the logos of the Ad Council and the National Crime Prevention Council, plus a Web site address (www.unloadandlock.com).
"Kalie" is one of three similarly themed Safe Storage of Hand Guns PSAs. Consisting only of children’s voices and drawings, they relate the human repercussions of storing firearms improperly. The campaign was conceived by a team at FCB, New York, comprising group creative director/copywriter Sandy Greenberg, group creative director/art director Terri Meyer and senior producer Paddy Giordano. The three PSAs were directed and shot by Michael Schrom of New York-based Michael Schrom & Company.
The drawings in "Kalie" were done by professional artist Florence Young. "It wouldn’t have been right for us to have drawings done by a real kid who has gone through this kind of tragedy," explained Schrom. "We didn’t want to do any harm to a child in that situation."
The key, Schrom remarked, was to "keep it simple. Less became more. Minimalism made the concept stronger." A limited number of drawings appeared in each PSA. "There were long moments of silence," continued Schrom. "Cameras moved across pieces of art, which had a lot of blank, dead space." The minimalist approach, added the director, served to underscore "the innocence of the children who are victims."
The campaign’s editor, Michael Schwartz of New York-based Zap Edit, concurred: "I had to tap into a different part of my creative sensibility to let the drawings breathe. Normally an editor tries to get as much information into a spot as possible, but here the message was so clean and clear that my job was to create a haunting feeling."
The decision was made not to use any music or sound design. "Any type of embellishment would have cheapened the overall message," was Schwartz’s assessment. "It didn’t need music to make it sad or somber. It stands alone … It was an incredible honor to be involved in a project like this."
Children were cast for the voiceover narration. Again, in searching for the right voices, the campaign’s creators did not seek out kids who had had a traumatic family experience involving guns.
For Michael Schrom & Company, Carl Sturges served as executive producer and producer. Schwartz’s support team at Zap consisted of assistant editor Andy Jennison and executive producer Elyse Hanan. Colorists were Tim Masick and Bobbie Thomas of Moving Images, New York. Audio engineer was Joseph Miuccio of Penny Lane Studios, New York.
"Soccer Zombies"
The soccer term "header" takes on a whole new meaning in Telstra. com’s "Soccer Zombies" from Australian agency Mojo Partners, Sydney.
The :45 opens on a teenager in his bedroom. The youngster tells us he’s into soccer, horror movies and mambo music, all of which are aptly evident in his room décor and surroundings.
The commercial then segues to a fantasy meshing the teen’s three interests—but we later learn that such a fantasy can in a sense become Internet reality. We first see a close-up of a soccer ball nestled in a grass field. The scene is idyllic as a butterfly flutters above the ball, accompanied by a flute’s pastoral melody. Suddenly, the mood is broken as the ground begins to rise and the beat of mambo music takes hold. A pair of hands breaks through the earth from below, and grabs the soccer ball. The hands belong to a zombie who’s risen from the dead—and he has playmates to help him, as a soccer game breaks out to mark their resurrection.
A zombie kicks the ball. But alas, his leg comes off, traveling further than the ball. Detachable parts represent a recurring penalty for making contact with the ball. One athletic zombie is ready to execute a header, which means he will use his head, literally, to pass the ball to a teammate. However, rather than bounce the ball off his head, the zombie is decapitated. The climatic, mambo-driven moment then comes with a shot on goal; the goalie being a zombie who is positioned midway between two trees. He’s ready to protect his territory as a kicked ball comes hurtling towards him. The goalie makes a headlong dive, arms outstretched to catch the ball and make a miraculous save—or so it seems for a scant few seconds. Ultimately the force of the ball takes its toll. He manages to keep his hands on the ball but is unable to keep his hands attached to his body. The hands as well as the ball go flying between the two trees, signaling a goal for the other team.
The spot then returns to the teenager who, from the comfort of his bedroom, observes: "There’s only one place where your interests come together—Telstra.com. It’s your dot-com."
The bookend pieces of the spot—the intro and conclusion in the teenager’s room—were directed by Joe Wright from the London office of bicoastal/international @radical.media. The madcap fantasy middle portion of "Soccer Zombies" was helmed by Roman Coppola of The Directors Bureau, Hollywood. Coppola had an extra dimension of authorship in that he was the one to come up with the three interests—soccer, horror and mambo—that were ultimately deployed in the commercial.
The Mojo creative ensemble consisted of creative director David Alberts, art director Garry Freedman, copywriter Jonothan Kneebone and producer Nigel Kenneally.
"Soccer Zombies" is currently airing in Australia, beginning a planned yearlong run Down Under. The soccer portion of the spot was shot on location at Elysian Park, Los Angeles, by DP Jo Willems and Steadicam operator Brooks Robinson. Coppola’s executive producer was Ned Brown.
Meanwhile, director Wright’s support team was headed by @radical media’s Sydney-based executive producer Loewn Steele. Line producer was Martha Coleman. The DP was Nick Mayo.
Adam Jenkins of Guillotine, Sydney, edited the intro and conclusion segments of the spot. The bizarre soccer match sequence was cut by feature editor David Moritz (Rushmore, Bottle Rocket), who earlier this year joined Wildchild Editorial, New York, for commercials and music videos. "Soccer Zombie" marks Moritz’s spot debut. Maria Fugere executive produced the spot for Wildchild.
This outlandish bit of humor represented an appealing story opportunity for Moritz. "My objective was to present Roman [Coppola] with a variety of possibilities to choose from," related Moritz. "I found working with him to be a very relaxed and easy-going process. And the immediate gratification of telling a story in a matter of seconds is a wonderful complement to my feature-length work."
Moritz’s other feature editing credits include Jerry McGuire and The Evening Star. At press time, he was about to wrap cutting on Knockaround Guys, a New Line Cinema release starring John Malkovich and Dennis Hopper.
Post/visual effects facility was Garner MacLennan Design, Sydney, with Morgane Furio serving as effects artist. Colorist was Dave Hollingsworth of Videolab, Sydney. Audio mixer was Simon Lister of Song Zu, Sydney. Music was composed by Ed Goldfarb of Madcap Labs, Los Angeles. «
