A man pushes his electric mower along his front lawn in about as mundane a slice of weekend life as you can get. However, it seems there’s a slice of something else on his grass. He stops the mower, turns it off and looks down to see what is in his path.
The man bends over to pick up the object, which is a detached human ear. He stares at it intently as if mulling over who it belongs to, how it became detached from its owner and how it wound up on his lawn.
But his curiosity quickly dissipates as he throws the ear over the fence to the lawn of his next door neighbor.
A super then “explains” this seemingly inexplicable behavior. It reads, “After 16 days of film, nothing will faze you,” followed by an end tag for the Vancouver International Film Festival.
“Ear” is one of four similarly themed commercials in an offbeat campaign directed by the Perlorian Brothers via Soft Citizen, Toronto, for agency TBWA, Vancouver, B.C. (The Perlorians are handled stateside by Furlined, Santa Monica.)
The agency ensemble included creative director/copywriter Paul Little, copywriter Brent Wheeler, art director Mark Mizgala and producer Mike Hasinoff.
Eva Preger and Link York executive produced for Soft Citizen, with Tuula Hopp serving as producer. The DP was Tico Poulakakis.
Editor was Bill Hardman of Tonic Post, Vancouver.
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