Tim Abshire Directs Anti-Tobacco Spot, "Grim Reaper," For Crispin Porter+Bogusky.
The Grim Reaper, a.k.a. Death, is being overworked, and his pleas for help are falling upon deaf ears. That’s the humorous yet serious premise behind "Grim Reaper," an anti-smoking :60 for The Florida Tobacco Pilot Program out of Miami agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky.
Directed by Tim Abshire of bicoastal Shelter Films, the spot opens on a tobacco company board meeting. "As you can see, our filtered cigarette sales have increased by fifteen percent," one executive proudly declares.
Suddenly the Grim Reaper himself enters the room and glides effortlessly to the head of the table. "You guys are killing me," the Grim Reaper rants to the execs. "A thousand people a day. There’s only one of me, you know. Slow down. Just do half. I can handle five hundred people a day. C’mon."
But the tobacco executives are oblivious as they resume their boardroom conversation, business as usual.
"Guess I’m talking to myself," shrugs the Grim Reaper, who bangs on his scythe as if it were a microphone. "Hello, is this thing on? … I don’t want to pull rank, but I know the devil."
The executives continue to pay no heed to the Reaper’s antics. A voiceover interjects: "Every day, over 1,000 people die from a tobacco-related illness. And every day, the tobacco industry just ignores them."
We then see the Grim Reaper being thrown out of the building by two security guards. Death’s only comeback: "That’s very impolite."
The Crispin Porter + Bogusky creative ensemble consisted of creative director Alex Bogusky, art director Dave Clemans, copywriter Tom Adams and producer Terry Stavoe.
Stavoe said he felt Abshire would be "perfect for the job," citing the helmer’s reel and the assignment prerequisite of "a great comedy director" to do justice to this "off-the-cuff" brand of humor.
Abshire was backed by a Shelter team that included executive producer Steven Shore, producer Amy Friedman and head of production Genevra DiLorenzo. The DP was Nixon Binney.
"Grim Reaper" was cut by Jeff Sternberger of Jefferson Edit, Miami. Online editor was Jerome Charles, the telecine artist was John Palmisano and the Inferno artist was Tammy Feldman, all of Manhattan Transfer/Miami. Sound designer/audio engineer was Steve Johnston of Outpost Audio, Miami. Stock music was obtained via bicoastal APM.
The spot, part of Crispin Porter + Bogusky’s ongoing "Truth" campaign, began running in late October throughout Florida.
Tim Burton Discusses His Dread Of AI As An Exhibition of His Work Opens In London
The imagination of Tim Burton has produced ghosts and ghouls, Martians, monsters and misfits — all on display at an exhibition that is opening in London just in time for Halloween.
But you know what really scares him? Artificial intelligence.
Burton said Wednesday that seeing a website that had used AI to blend his drawings with Disney characters "really disturbed me."
"It wasn't an intellectual thought — it was just an internal, visceral feeling," Burton told reporters during a preview of "The World of Tim Burton" exhibition at London's Design Museum. "I looked at those things and I thought, 'Some of these are pretty good.' … (But) it gave me a weird sort of scary feeling inside."
Burton said he thinks AI is unstoppable, because "once you can do it, people will do it." But he scoffed when asked if he'd use the technology in this work.
"To take over the world?" he laughed.
The exhibition reveals Burton to be an analogue artist, who started off as a child in the 1960s experimenting with paints and colored pencils in his suburban Californian home.
"I wasn't, early on, a very verbal person," Burton said. "Drawing was a way of expressing myself."
Decades later, after films including "Edward Scissorhands," "Batman," "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and "Beetlejuice," his ideas still begin with drawing. The exhibition includes 600 items from movie studio collections and Burton's personal archive, and traces those ideas as they advance from sketches through collaboration with set, production and costume designers on the way to the big screen.
London is the exhibition's final stop on a decade-long tour of 14 cities in 11 countries. It has been reconfigured and expanded with 90 new objects for its run in... Read More