Canon’s “Inspired” won the best primetime commercial Emmy this evening during the Creative Arts Emmy Awards ceremony held at the Nokia Theatre in the L.A. Live complex. Directed by Nicolai Fuglsig of MJZ for Grey New York, “Inspired” broke a run of four straight years that Wieden+Kennedy won the spot Emmy.
“Inspired” depicts the lengths people will go in order to take a special photograph. A man leans precariously over the side of a home’s snowy rooftop, with camera in hand to capture a scene we cannot see. A woman frantically flees from a fast charging giraffe yet still manages to get off some shots of the animal with a camera held at different awkward angles. A guy shoots seafood on ice at an outdoor Chinese market only to be shooed away by the proprietor. A man climbs a huge reef with camera at the ready. A mom looks to snap the perfect shot of her daughter blowing out the candles on her birthday cake. Another man finds himself running helter skelter away from swarming bats who were presumably riled up when his flash lit up their dwelling. A guy has his head nearly submerged in a lake but holds his camera up high enough to get a shot of something or someone out of our view. A man has a badly scraped knee, a wound evidently suffered while trying to get his camera someplace it shouldn’t have been. And a young gent with skates on his feet and a skateboard under his back swoops down a steep street to follow a tire on fire rolling down the thoroughfare.
A super then appears on screen which simply reads: “Long live imagination.”
All these earnest photographers are introduced to us with the musical accompaniment of a specially arranged rendition of the song “Beautiful Dreamer” as vocalized by Rachel Fannan of Only You. Her performance also is the aural backdrop to a series of still photos we next see that were shot in action by these photographers who dared to pursue their dream shots. It turns out, for example, that the man on the snowy rooftop was shooting a friend luxuriating in a backyard pool surrounded by snow and ice.
A voiceover concludes, “What will you imagine with the new Rebel EOS T4i from Canon?”
The Grey NY creative team on “Inspired” included chief creative officer Tor Myhren, executive creative directors Ari Halper and Steve Krauss, creative directors Stu Mair and Dave Cuccinello, broadcast producer Topher Lorette, photography producer Jen Pugliese, music producer Zach Pollakoff and director of music Josh Rabinowitz.
Linus Sandgren was the DP.
Editor was Neil Smith of Work Editorial.
Music house was Black Iris Music with Rob Barbato serving as arranger.
Sound designer was Bill Chesley of henryboy.
Mixer was Keith Reynaud of Heard City.
“Inspired” topped a field of 2013 Emmy nominations that also consisted of Grey Poupon’s “The Chase” directed by Bryan Buckley of Hungry Man for Crispin Porter+Bogusky; Google Chrome’s “Jess Time” helmed by Nanette Burstein for Google’s Creative Lab; and Nike’s “Jogger” directed by Lance Acord of Park Pictures for Wieden+Kennedy.
Ad artisans
Other artisans involved in commercialmaking also scored at the 2013 Creative Arts Emmys, a prime example being Sloane Klevin, an editor/partner at Union Editorial where she’s active in spots and branded content. Tonight Klevin won the Emmy in the Outstanding Picture Editing for Nonfiction Programming category on the strength of director/writer Alex Gibney’s documentary, Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence In The House of God (HBO), which exposes the abuse of power in the Catholic Church and a cover-up of clerical molestation of children that winds its way from the row houses of Milwaukee through the choirs of Ireland’s churches all the way to the highest office of the Vatican.
Gibney–who’s repped as a commercials director by Chelsea–won the Emmy for Outstanding Writing for Nonfiction Programming on the basis of Mea Maxima Culpa which also took a Television Academy juried award for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking.
Mea Maxima Culpa‘s three Emmys tied for fourth in Creative Arts competition wins–also scoring three awards each were Saturday Night Live (NBC) and Disney Mickey Mouse Croissant de Triomphe (Disney.com). Tied for second with four Emmys apiece were Boardwalk Empire (HBO) and the 66th annual Tony Awards (CBS). And taking first with eight Emmys was the Liberace biopic Behind the Candelabra (HBO).
The strong showing for Behind the Candelabra could prove to be historic as the most Emmy wins by any program in a single year was the 13 earned by the HBO miniseries John Adams in 2008. Behind the Candelabra has seven more nominations in the running at next Sunday’s primetime Emmy Awards.
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Editor’s note: SHOOT‘s The Road To Emmy, Part 11, will delve more deeply into the Creative Arts Emmys. Part 11 will be posted online later this week and appear in the Sept. 20 print issue and concurrent SHOOT >e.dition.
