Everyone knows there are cockroaches in New York, but not everyone knows how to exploit them for an advertising campaign. Agency davidandgoliath/Los Angeles created a campaign for Ecko: Zoo York, that uses cockroaches to promote their footwear and skateboards in two online video ads that are also running on TV. The spots were produced by Rockhard Films/Los Angeles.
Tough, a :30, features two cockroaches sitting on a park bench discussing how tough they are until a skateboarder wearing Zoo York shoes lands on the bench and crushes one of the roaches. Spread the Word, a :60, features the Zoo York Skate team, who traverse down Wall Street with bags of roaches and empty them onto the street, shocking pedestrians.
“Zoo York is proud of their unbreakable New York spirit,” said Colin Jeffery, executive creative director of davidandgoliath. “When you think of New York cockroaches, they’re unbreakable. They’re the only thing that could live through a nuclear blast on the streets, but maybe Zoo York is even tougher than the cockroaches.
“In Tough, you see two New York cockroaches talking about how tough they are, with the dialogue and New York accents. In Spread the Word we took a different tack, we fused the street culture with the cockroaches. We said what would happen if we took on the man using cockroaches, so we went down the corporate part of town and put the man back in his box.”
The spots are playing at www.ZooYork.com/Roaches, YouTube, AOL Video, Google Video and a variety of blog sites. They began playing online and on TV (MTV, Fuel TV and ESPN), on April 1.
Tony Petrossian, the Rockhard Films director, said Tough was a simple shoot. “We were letting the cockroaches do their thing. Nothing crazy camera wise, we didn’t want to get in the way.” Spread the Word “was more complex. We wanted it to seem like the skaters went out and shot it Blair Witch style. We wanted to make it look slick without looking directed, so we made sure it looked like it could have been shot by someone, and if a kid couldn’t be holding the camera we didn’t use that shot.”
For Tough, Petrossian had to shoot two cockroaches, which wasn’t easy since the spot was shot in November in cold weather. “They were freezing, so the handler and I figured out a way to keep them moving and we were able to get some cool animated gestures,” he said.
Petrossian used a Arri Super 16mm camera for Tough and shot Spread the Word with a Panasonic DVX100 HD camera. “We wanted a filmic look for Tough and a real documentary style look for Spread the Word,” he said.
This is the first work davidandgoliath has done for Ecko: Zoo York. The company had done viral advertising in-house previously, Jeffery said. He selected Rockhard Films and Petrossian because he wanted a director who “moves fast and thinks on his feet. He understands skateboard culture and shot it run-and-gun style.”
Bill Condon, Jennifer Lopez Unveil “Kiss of the Spider Woman” At Sundance
A lavish, MGM-style musical is not typical Sundance Film Festival fare. But Sunday night Bill Condon brought such a creation—well, part of one—to Park City, Utah, with his adaptation of "Kiss of the Spider Woman," starring Jennifer Lopez.
Audiences broke out in spontaneous applause during the screening for Lopez's song and dance numbers. She plays an old Hollywood screen siren in a movie-within-the movie. The packed Eccles Theater also gave Lopez, wearing a glittery spiderweb themed frock, a standing ovation after the show.
"I've been waiting for this moment my whole life," Lopez said.
The story, which revolves around the conversations between two cellmates in an Argentine prison, was first a novel by Manuel Puig in 1976 and has been adapted for stage and screen over the years. A 1985 film adaptation starred William Hurt and Raul Julia. Hurt won an Oscar for his performance. On Broadway, it won multiple Tony Awards.
Condon wrote and directed this new version, which is seeking a distributor. Diego Luna plays an imprisoned revolutionary Valentin Arregui, whose new cellmate Luis Molina (Tonatiuh) loves movies, celebrity and glamour and enthusiastically recounts the story of a favorite movie musical, called "Kiss of the Spider Woman" to Valentin, giving them and the audience a break from their bleak reality.
While the film has memorable moments of escapist spectacle, it also delves into serious topics of gender identity. Molina tells Valentin that they don't feel like a man or a woman—which Valentin finds odd at first but grows to understand.
Before the screening, Condon said that one of the things the movie is about is "the attempt to bridge the incredible differences that separate us so often." He quoted President... Read More