Forms Production Team In Move That Underscores Growth In Cinema Advertising
Aero Film has formed a production team dedicated to the development of advertising intended specifically for big-screen cinema. The Santa Monica-based commercial production company, headed up by partner/president Skip Short and partner/executive producer Lance O’Connor, maintains a directorial roster that includes Ken Arlidge, Henrik Hansen, Klaus Obermeyer, Brent Jones and Nelson McCormick.
Just last month, Aero Film’s “National Guard/Citizen Soldier” (directed by Obermeyer) was nominated by The Cinema Advertising Council (CAC) as an entry in the CAC’s 2007 Creative Excellence Awards which recognizes high-quality, entertaining advertising messages showcased at the movies. The spot was nominated in the Top Integrated Cinema Advertising Campaign category.
“We’ve looked into every viable avenue for agencies and their clients,” said O’Connor. “TV advertising can be powerful but with DVR penetration and so many in-home distractions, a lot of ad messages just aren’t getting through. YouTube, Yahoo!, broadband, podcasting and being virally active is nice, but they are just icing on the cake. We love cinema because it gives brands proven distribution on a massive scale. Over 100 million people a month in this country go to the movies. Other alternative offerings are still just a lot of hype that lack distribution and proper measurement. We’re all looking to connect with the audience and build brands, hence our effort, which brings together a team of production pros from Aero with reps from Screenvision [the New York-headquartered cinema advertising firm] to get across the message that cinema delivers. Aero’s message to agency creatives is, let’s produce advertising with cinema in mind.”
Aero Film is the first commercial production company to specifically target cinema advertising with market-leader Screenvision. “Aero Film has been an ideal partner for us in the production of ads for cinematic release and in courting clients to develop media strategies that include cinema,” said Jason Brown, executive VP of national and regional sales for Screenvision. “In every test, the recall rates for their ads placed in cinema are always at the top of what we see….They approach production from a cinematic point of view and in doing so have developed a proven expertise in generating impact for advertisers. We’re currently working with the Aero team in conjunction with some big agencies, discussing possible cinema release for their upcoming campaigns.”
Aero has quickly amassed an expertise in producing ads for the big screen. In the past year, Aero Film produced cinema ads for the Army National Guard, the U.S. Navy, Suzuki, Northrop Gruman and General Motors. According to statistics by the Cinema Advertising Council, spending on cinema advertising has grown more than 20 percent in each of the last three years–in part because of agencies shifting dollars away from traditional tv spots affected by DVR penetration that allows views to skip ads. In 2005, cinema advertising revenues totaled more than $528 million dollars, and are expected to reach $1 billion by 2010.
Andy Blenkle, account supervisor at Alexandria, Va.-based LM&O, said work on the aforementioned campaign for Army National Guard with Aero Film provided the foundation for their integrated ad campaign. “You go to movies for entertainment, but with incredibly higher expectations for everything you see,” said Blenkle. “Aero knows how to keep the story and emotion, which makes all the other ads in our integrated campaign more effective. The strength of our theater campaign makes our TV, direct mail, everything in our integrated effort more effective.”
Review: Malcolm Washington Makes His Feature Directing Debut With “The Piano Lesson”
An heirloom piano takes on immense significance for one family in 1936 Pittsburgh in August Wilson's "The Piano Lesson." Generational ties also permeate the film adaptation, in which Malcolm Washington follows in his father Denzel Washington's footsteps in helping to bring the entirety of The Pittsburgh Cycle — a series of 10 plays — to the screen.
Malcolm Washington did not start from scratch in his accomplished feature filmmaking debut. He enlisted much of the cast from the recent Broadway revival with Samuel L. Jackson (Doaker Charles), his brother, John David Washington (Boy Willie), Ray Fisher (Lymon) and Michael Potts (Whining Boy). Berniece, played by Danielle Brooks in the play, is now beautifully portrayed by Danielle Deadwyler. With such rich material and a cast for whom it's second nature, it would be hard, one imagines, to go wrong. Jackson's own history with the play goes back to its original run in 1987 when he was Boy Willie.
It's not the simplest thing to make a play feel cinematic, but Malcolm Washington was up to the task. His film opens up the world of the Charles family beyond the living room. In fact, this adaptation, which Washington co-wrote with "Mudbound" screenwriter Virgil Williams, goes beyond Wilson's text and shows us the past and the origins of the intricately engraved piano that's central to all the fuss. It even opens on a big, action-filled set piece in 1911, during which the piano is stolen from a white family's home. Another fleshes out Doaker's monologue in which he explains to the uninitiated, Fisher's Lymon, and the audience, the tortured history of the thing. While it might have been nice to keep the camera on Jackson, such a great, grounding presence throughout, the good news is that he really makes... Read More