This spec spot takes us into the Foley room where the sound effects are being created for a kung fu movie. As we see the martial arts combatants square off, an ingenious Foley artist is spicing up their battle with appropriate, well-timed audio effects. He bangs together two bowling pins to score a rapid-fire succession of blows in a kung fu sequence. Subsequent hits are accentuated by the popping of balloons.
Wooden boards are the next audio source. The Foley artist cracks one board over his knee, then puts his fist through another, all timed perfectly to the fight action visuals.
Then he needs a big furious impact to accompany a hellacious flying drop kick being delivered by one combatant to the other–possibly the decisive blow of the battle. First the Foley artist tries banging a huge gong. Looking for even greater impact, he puts a sledgehammer to a watermelon.
Finally, he comes up with the perfect effect, popping open a can of Mountain Dew. Yet while that proves to be apt audio accompaniment for the kung fu duel to the death unfolding on film, everything is aurally downhill from there. As the combatants continue their battle, we now hear a swallowing sound as the Foley artist is guzzling the Mountain Dew. Then we see one of the martial artists ready to attack only to hear a loud belch emanate from him–indeed the Foley artist may have chugalugged his Dew a bit too fast.
An end tag carries the Mountain Dew logo.
This comedic commercial, titled “Foley,” was directed by the team of Zack Resnicoff and J.C. Khoury–a.k.a. Zack & J.C.–via the Group 101Spots initiative, a nearly three-and-a-half-year-old program whereby aspiring directors turn out spec spots to gain experience, exposure and professional industry feedback. Since its inception on the West Coast, Group101 has helped a variety of up-and-coming directors get discovered by the commercialmaking community at large. Last September, Group101 went bicoastal and formally launched in New York. Zack & J.C. are among the first crop of directors to come out of the Big Apple leg of the Group101 program.
Zack & J.C. also wrote, produced, edited and handled sound design for “Foley.” The DP was Martin Ahlgren.
Colorist was Alex Berman at Post Logic, New York. Visual effects were done at R!OT Manhattan, with Randie Swanberg serving as visual effects artist. Audio post mixer was Mike Levesque via earth2mars, New York. Principal actor was Rob Huebe.
Based largely on “Foley” and another spec piece they directed via Group101, Zack & J.C. landed a real-world job, helming a client-direct Hispanic market spot for vitamin company GenSpec. To facilitate this and other planned work for GenSpec, Zack & J.C. just launched their own New York-based production house, Shoot First Entertainment. While they look to build that venture, the directorial team is also entertaining overtures from established commercial production companies for representation.
Zack & J.C.–who met and began working together in the graduate film program at NYU–have also made their mark in the Web space as their short, Eat Less Bacon, recently debuted as part of the Aquafina series of shorts out of Tribal DDB Dallas, appearing on ResolutionsOnFilm.com.
A Nomination Tradition: DGA Award, Best Director Oscar Discrepancy Continues
The awards season norm has seen the nearly annual occurrence of at least one difference between the lineups of Best Director Oscar and the DGA Award nominees. In only five of the 77 years of the DGA Awards have the Guild nominations exactly mirrored their Academy Award counterparts. This time around Edward Berger and Coralie Fargeat are in line with the predominant history. Fargeat earned a Best Director Oscar nomination this week for The Substance (MUBI). Berger, who didn’t make the directorial Oscar cut, earned a DGA Award nomination for Conclave (Focus Features). Four of the five directors vying for the DGA Award and the Outstanding Achievement in Directing Oscar are in sync this year: Jacques Audiard for Emilia Pérez (Netflix) Sean Baker for Anora (Neon), Brady Corbet for The Brutalist (A24), and James Mangold for A Complete Unknown (Searchlight). On the flip side of tradition, if Fargeat were to win the directing Oscar, that development wouldn’t be aligned with but rather bucking history. Only eight times has the DGA Award winner not gone on to win the Oscar. That happened most recently in 2020 when Sam Mendes won the DGA Award for 1917 while Bong Joon-ho scored the Oscar for Parasite. Fargeat has already made a bit of history, scoring just the 10th Best Director Oscar nomination ever for a woman. The Substance is up for five Oscars--the other nominations being for Best Picture, Leading Actress (Demi Moore), Original Screenplay (Fargeat), and Makeup & Hairstyling (Pierre-Olivier Persin, Stephanie Guillon, Marilyne Scarselli). Even without a Best Director nomination, Conclave tallied eight Oscar nods--for Best Picture, Leading Actor (Ralph... Read More