This spot opens on a chopped down tree. Suddenly a breeze blows a single leaf in the foreground back towards the fallen tree. Before our eyes, other leaves come to roost and the tree starts to move into an upright position.
The tree is again standing, planted firmly in terra firma. And another tree in the background has also returned to its natural state, doing a reversal of what one sees when a lumberjack yells timber.
Accompanying the visual of a computer screen on which a PPL Electric Utilities website appears, a voiceover relates, “We’re urging our consumers to go paperless…to start receiving a paying bills online.” Besides being more convenient, the voiceover continues, such a newly adopted practice “will save a lot of trees.”
We then see an overhead shot of a forest densely populated with trees–and in the midst of this, another tree stands up.
Chris Staves and Marco Spier of MassMarket, New York, directed “Paperless” for McCaffery Gottlieb Lane, New York.
Justin Lane exec produced for Mass Market with Nick Litwinko serving as producer. Other Mass Market contributors included lead technical director Florian Witzel, technical directors Jeffrey Dates, Kris Rivel, Jacob Slutsky and Pakorn Bupphavesa, designer Ann Vu, 3D artists Justin Burtin, John Clausing, Chris Santioanni, Boris Ustaev and Todd Akita, 2D artist Chris West, modeler Joon Lee, lead rotoscoper Leslie Chung and rotoscopers Carlos Rosario, Stefania Gallico and Will Frazier.
McCaffery Gottlieb Lane’s creative team included art director Roy Herbert, copywriter John Peebles and producer Lisa Goore.
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