Psyop partnered with The Butler Bros to develop a public service campaign for Legacy and Leave No Trace, which aims to raise awareness, spark discussions, and encourage the general public to think about tobacco trash in a new way.
In this spot, the camera pans from left to right, zeroing in on what seems to be toxic waste gushing from a run down factory. Nearing the end of the building, the camera elevates and reveals not an industrial plant but a discarded cigarette butt, swimming in the gutter along with many others. The camera looks down from a bird’s eye view as the collection of butts leak chemicals into the water supply.
“Despite the fact that so many Americans are hyper-concerned about the environment and are eager to recycle household items and pick up litter, there remains a total disconnect when it comes to flicking cigarette butts onto our streets and into our waterways,” explained Dr. Cheryl Healton, DrPH, President and CEO of Legacy. The campaign urges viewers to “Rethink Butts” and take a new perspective on this environmental issue.
“We set out to reposition cigarette butts from merely an unsightly form of litter to what they actually are — toxic waste,” said Butler Brothers’ director of creativity, Marty Butler.
Psyop drew inspiration from a variety of ecological disasters, including the recent toxic sludge tsunami in Hungary, as well as abandoned oil rigs and factories.
“From the initial pitch style frames, we increased the scale of the factory by five times,” commented Psyop creative director David Chontos. “This increased the level of detail across the entire design, which led to a tremendous amount of additional texture painting and modeling.”
Modeling and animation for the PSA was completed in Maya, while all the liquid effects were simulated using RealFlow. The spot was rendered using Arnold in Maya, and compositing was carried out in Nuke and Flame.
DGA Spot Nominees: Lance Acord, Kim Gehrig, Tim Heidecker & Eric Wareheim, Andreas Nilsson, Ivan Zacharias
This year’s field of nominees for the Directors Guild of America (DGA) Award recognizing Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Commercials consists of a filmmaker who’s won the honor each of the last two years, another past winner, a five-time nominee, a helmer who’s just picked up his second career nod, and a duo garnering their very first Guild nomination. The latter is the directorial team of Tim Heidecker & Eric Wareheim of production house PRETTYBIRD. The director now going for her third consecutive DGA Award win is Kim Gehrig of Somesuch. The other past winner is Andreas Nilsson of Biscuit Filmworks. Nilsson won the honor in 2016 and now has three career nominations. Lance Acord of Park Pictures just earned his fifth career DGA Award nomination in the commercials category--his four prior nods coming in 2004, 2012, 2013 and 2017. And scoring his second career DGA nod is Ivan Zacharias of SMUGGLER who was previously nominated in 2023. The work Gehrig earned her third straight nomination on the strength of three entries: SiriusXM’s “A Life in Sound” for agency Uncommon; Nike’s “Am I A Bad Person?” for Wieden+Kennedy, and the Apple client-direct spot titled “Find Your Friends.” Nilsson’s latest nomination came for Hennessy’s “Board Game” out of Wieden+Kennedy London; Andrex’s “First Office Poo” for FCB London; the client-direct Apple spot “One More”; and Virgin Media’s “Whizzer” for VCCP London. Acord’s fifth career nod is for Volkswagen’s “An American Love Story” out of agency Johannes Leonardo. Zacharias’ second career nomination is for Apple’s “Flock” out of TBWAMedia Arts Lab. And the duo of Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim nabbed their first... Read More