Director Allen Weiss is well known in the ad biz with assorted commercials to his credit, many of them humorous. But the public service spot he most recently wrapped is hardly comedic. It’s safe to say, though, that it is his most personal spot to date, featuring a cast that includes him, his two daughters and father.
The PSA opens on the latter, a 78-year-old man who introduces himself as “89444,” the number that Nazis tattooed on him 65 years ago. Harry Weiss still has that tattoo on his arm, a reminder of his time spent at Nazi death camps in Landsberg, Dachau and Auschwitz.
Harry Weiss is one of three Holocaust survivors featured in this :30. One man was at a concentration camp in Bergen Belsen, another recalls the haunting sight of the crematory smokestacks “going twenty-four hours a day.”
Juxtaposed with these survivors are some of their progeny, including director Allen Weiss and his daughters Emily and Natalie who refer to their grandfather as number 89444. They and other descendants of Nazi death camp survivors urge us to “remember,” a word which then appears by itself on screen to finally be joined by a more complete message, which reads, “Remember 6,000,000” and then encourages us to attend a “Holocaust Commemoration” on Sunday, May 4, at the Jones Auditorium at Meredith College in Raleigh, N.C.
Titled “Remember,” this PSA is being distributed to stations throughout North Carolina, including in such markets as Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill, with the hope that it will be aired to promote the May 4 event.
Birth of a notion “Being the child of a survivor, doing something to keep the Holocaust in the mind of the public was, to me, a given,” related director Weiss. “The central concept of this piece is this: There is no better way to assert the fact that people are individuals and not numbers than to assign numbers to people. That’s exactly what the Nazi machine did. So this concept is simple–have survivors, and their progeny, appear on camera and simply, bluntly, state their number.”
Once he put the idea on paper, Weiss sought the approval of the person most responsible for it–his father.
“After he gave it his blessing, I brought it before the North Carolina Council on the Holocaust,” Allen Weiss said. “They fully endorsed and approved the idea, but there was no money for production. So I called upon everyone I knew in the production community here, and the support was overwhelming. The biggest endorsement and commitment came from Trailblazer Studio which is right here in Raleigh. I have had an excellent relationship with them for many years, and their commitment was both immediate and comprehensive.”
With the Council’s help, Weiss sought out other survivors. “This is at once the toughest and easiest casting job I’ve ever had,” Weiss said. “Easy because, well, they are who they are. And tough for the same reason.”
Two other survivors–both of Raleigh–agreed and came to Trailblazer’s facility to commit their faces and stories to film.
Three children and two grandchildren of survivors also made themselves available to the production. (They don’t want their names used for this article so that they can maintain some semblance of privacy.)
Ripple effect
Allen Weiss expressed hope for the good that this PSA can help to bring about.
“In the wake of such a global catastrophe, this project is nothing more than a pebble tossed in the ocean,” he said. “But the ripples that those pebbles create can be huge. As long as people keep tossing the pebbles, nobody will forget what they mean or where they came from.”
Weiss directed the job via his own Brackish Films, Raleigh. The PSA was produced by Brackish and Trailblazer Studio. Weiss served as director, executive producer, creative director, copywriter and art director through Brackish. (In addition to Brackish, Weiss is repped for commercials via Sedna Films in Los Angeles and Juicy Films in Richmond, Va.)
The DP was Garye Costner of Trailblazer.
Joe Wilson of Raleigh-based Serious Robots served as the editor of the public service spot.
This marks the third Holocaust awareness spot reported on by SHOOT in recent weeks. The previous two, “Family Room” and “Subway” were part of an MTV campaign directed by Michael Franzini for Arnold Worldwide, Boston (SHOOT, 2/15).
