We open on a car waiting at a stop sign. With his young son in the backseat, the driver looks to his right and sees a car approaching in the distance. He pulls his vehicle out to make a left onto the road, not properly judging just how fast the oncoming car is traveling. We appear headed for an inevitable collision but the inevitability is delayed for a prolonged frozen moment.
During this pause just a split second before impact, the cars are at a standstill. Then both men drivers get out of their respective cars. Standing in the road, the two men look at each other and share their thoughts. Their conversation personalizes the grim repercussions about to take place.
“I’m so sorry. I thought there was time,” says the first driver.
“You just pulled out,” replies the other driver. “I didn’t have time to stop.”
“C’mon, mate. It was a simple mistake.”
The other driver concedes that only if he were going a bit slower, the horrific accident about to happen might have been avoided.
The oncoming car starts to move, at which point the first driver pleads, “Please, I got my boy in the back.”
The other driver responds, “I’m going too fast. I’m sorry.”
Both men get back in their cars, return to their respective positions behind the wheel, and we see a readout of more than 100/km per hour on the speedometer of the oncoming vehicle. Real-time action resumes, ending in a harrowing, violent collision.
A message appears on screen which advises, “Other people make mistakes. Slow down.”
High impact
Derin Seale directed this :60 PSA, titled “Small Mistakes,” for The New Zealand Transport Agency out of Clemenger BBDO in Wellington, NZ. Production house on the job was Finch, which has offices in Sydney and Auckland. (Seale is handled in the U.S. by Believe Media.) DP was Stefan Duscio.
The creative ensemble at Clemenger BBDO consisted of executive creative director Philip Andrew, writer Emily Beautrais and art director Frances Cooke.
Visual effects were handled by Fin Design & Effects in Sydney.
Director Seale is no stranger to making an impact, literally and figuratively, for the New Zealand Transport Agency. He earlier directed the :60 “Flying Objects” which captured the devastating effects of a car accident. We see the crash in slow motion as airbags deploy. A voiceover explains that even when the car stops in an accident, everything inside moves–a soda bottle shatters as does a cellphone which flies through the automobile’s interior. These flying objects are akin to the passengers’ vital internal organs which too are violently jarred by the impact. The spot depicts this, going inside each passenger’s body to show various organs such as the heart, spinal cord and neck vertebrae being damaged. “Flying Objects” won a Bronze Lion at Cannes 2012, and Silver Awards at the 2012 Spikes, the 2013 Axis Awards and the 2013 New York Festivals.
