This spot features the human hand gripping a range of objects including a frog, a hammer, crumpling paper, a sponge, an egg, soap, a cricket ball and a goldfish. After presenting these images in full-screen for a while, the screen splits, showing the wrists doing different activities simultaneously, as well as revolving. Finally, the spot closes with the screen splitting into four different images of spinning forearms, each gripping something different. These images are each replaced with the underside of an Audi, its wheels revolving.
The latter image showcases the Audi Quattro cars’ road handling all-wheel-drive system, with the human hands being deployed to convey the advantages of the Grip technology. Just as the hand can adjust to grip different objects, so too can the Audi Grip system adapt to different road surfaces, providing optimum driver control.
Directed by Dom & Nic of Outsider, London, for BBH, London, the spot featured visual effects and telecine by Framestore, London.
Does “Hundreds of Beavers” Reflect A New Path Forward In Cinema?
Hard as it may be to believe, changing the future of cinema was not on Mike Cheslik's mind when he was making "Hundreds of Beavers." Cheslik was in the Northwoods of Wisconsin with a crew of four, sometimes six, standing in snow and making his friend, Ryland Tews, fall down funny.
"When we were shooting, I kept thinking: It would be so stupid if this got mythologized," says Cheslik.
And yet, "Hundreds of Beavers" has accrued the stuff of, if not quite myth, then certainly lo-fi legend. Cheslik's film, made for just $150,000 and self-distributed in theaters, has managed to gnaw its way into a movie culture largely dominated by big-budget sequels.
"Hundreds of Beavers" is a wordless black-and-white bonanza of slapstick antics about a stranded 19th century applejack salesman (Tews) at war with a bevy of beavers, all of whom are played by actors in mascot costumes.
No one would call "Hundreds of Beavers" expensive looking, but it's far more inventive than much of what Hollywood produces. With some 1,500 effects shots Cheslik slaved over on his home computer, he crafted something like the human version of Donald Duck's snowball fight, and a low-budget heir to the waning tradition of Buster Keaton and "Naked Gun."
At a time when independent filmmaking is more challenged than ever, "Hundreds of Beavers" has, maybe, suggested a new path forward, albeit a particularly beaver-festooned path.
After no major distributor stepped forward, the filmmakers opted to launch the movie themselves, beginning with carnivalesque roadshow screenings. Since opening in January, "Hundreds of Beavers" has played in at least one theater every week of the year, though never more than 33 at once. (Blockbusters typically play in around 4,000 locations.)... Read More