A man bangs the cast on his arm repeatedly against the top of the desk at which he’s seated. He then opens the top drawer of that desk and then closes it forcefully on the cast. He repeats that action several times but to no avail as the cast is still intact.
He gets up from the desk and walks toward the front of what we had presumed to be his office but the camera instead reveals to be a furniture showroom. A couple is seated on some of the furniture for sale; our cast-wearing man looks at them and smiles as if his offbeat behavior never happened. It turns out, though, that he walked toward the showroom just to get a running start as he sprints cast first toward a solid metal door near his desk. He blasts his cast against that door and falls down, having finally succeeded in breaking the cast open–if not breaking his arm again.
The reason for his aberrant behavior then becomes apparent as he pulls a raffle ticket out from the now shattered cast. A janitor approaches the man who feels threatened that he could have his ticket snatched away. A voiceover explains, “Only a limited number of raffle tickets will be sold. Keep yours in a safe place.” The million dollar raffle is being held to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Washington State Lottery.
“Broken Arm” is one of two spots in a campaign directed by Jim Hosking of Biscuit Filmworks, Los Angeles, for Publicis in the West, Seattle.
The Publicis team included Publicis USA chief creative officer Bob Moore, executive creative director Rob Rich, group creative director Parag Tembulkar, art director John Meyer, senior copywriter Todd Mitchell, director of broadcast Derek Ruddy and senior producer Mary Ellen Farrar.
Shawn Lacy executive produced for Biscuit, with Caroline Pham serving as line producer. The DP was Marten Tedin.
Editor was Kelly Vander Linda of Collective, Seattle.
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