Nine-year-old Heather McNamara speaks directly to the camera in a matter-of-fact manner. “They just said go to Philadelphia,” she related. “Philadelphia didn’t want to touch me.
“They said go to Florida. Florida didn’t want to touch me. And then we went to all these hospitals. They just told us to go to all these places.”
A message appears on screen which informs us that Heather had a baseball-sized cancerous tumor lodged among her vital organs.”
We return to Heather on camera who says that she and her family finally found a place that didn’t send her elsewhere: New York-Presbyterian. Heather stumbles a bit in her pronunciation of “Presbyterian.” She tell us of Dr. Kato who agreed to operate.
A supered message reads, “In a 23-hour surgery, Dr. Tomoaki Kato temporarily removed six major organs in order to remove the tumor.”
The camera comes back to Heather who tells us how happy she is to be better and cancer free.
The spot ends with the New York-Presbyterian campaign mantra, “Amazing Things Are Happening Here.”
The “Amazing Stories” campaign spanning TV and the web was created by New York agency Munn Rabôt. “Heather” and other spots in the black-and-white campaign featuring candid monologues from real patients were directed by agency co-founder/creative director Peter Rabôt and edited by Antoine Mills of wild(child), New York. Production house on the job was Lost Highway Films, N.Y.
“I’ve worked in advertising for the past twenty-five years, but I’ve never been fortunate to do anything like this,” Rabôt said. “I know by the incredible reaction this work is getting that we have something here that goes way above advertising–it’s not easy to break through in this category. Antoine sat through many grueling days with creative director John Stingley and myself and was a great creative support throughout the process. He settled for nothing less than the best and helped take this work, and the category, to a totally new level.”
Disney Pledges $15 million In L.A. Fire Aid As More Celebs Learn They’ve Lost Their Homes
The Pacific Palisades wildfires torched the home of "This Is Us" star Milo Ventimiglia, perhaps most poignantly destroying the father-to-be's newly installed crib.
CBS cameras caught the actor walking through his charred house for the first time, standing in what was once his kitchen and looking at a neighborhood in ruin. "Your heart just breaks."
He and his pregnant wife, Jarah Mariano, evacuated Tuesday with their dog and they watched on security cameras as the flames ripped through the house, destroying everything, including a new crib.
"There's a kind of shock moment where you're going, 'Oh, this is real. This is happening.' What good is it to continue watching?' And then at a certain point we just turned it off, like 'What good is it to continue watching?'"
Firefighters sought to make gains Friday during a respite in the heavy winds that fanned the flames as numerous groups pledged aid to help victims and rebuild, including a $15 million donation pledge from the Walt Disney Co.
More stars learn their homes are gone
While seeing the remains of his home, Ventimiglia was struck by a connection to his "This Is Us" character, Jack Pearson, who died after inhaling smoke in a house fire. "It's not lost on me life imitating art."
Mandy Moore, who played Ventimiglia's wife on "This Is Us," nearly lost her home in the Eaton fire, which scorched large areas of the Altadena neighborhood. She said Thursday that part of her house is standing but is unlivable, and her husband lost his music studio and all his instruments.
Mel Gibson's home is "completely gone," his publicist Alan Nierob confirmed Friday. The Oscar winner revealed the loss of his home earlier Friday while appearing on Joe Rogan's... Read More