This spot gives a new meaning to the term “chocolate dipped” to describe a product–and in this case the product is the Yes Essentials car seat. Titled “Chocolate,” this :30 takes us to a U.K. laboratory test facility where a technician sitting on a Yes seat is immersed in a vat of melted chocolate to prove that the product indeed lives up to its anti-stain billing.
The lab technician and the seat are then lifted out of the vat, both covered in chocolate. Fellow “scientists” scrub the seat and hence reveal a completely clean and unstained car seat.
Combining to inject an offbeat, humorous dynamic to the product demo genre were director Dave Laden of Uber Content, Hollywood, and agency Erwin-Penland in Greenville, S.C.
Laden’s support team at Uber included exec producers Preston Lee and Phyllis Koenig, with Rocky Bice serving as producer. The DP was Ross Richardson.
The Erwin-Penland ensemble consisted of executive creative director Andy Mendelsohn, senior art director Jason Smith, copywriter Karen Walker and producer Jane Cashin.
The editor was Seagan Ngai of Teak Motion Visuals, San Francisco.
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