This animation spot at first appears to be a kitschy promo featuring "Mr. Hotdog," "Mr. Popcorn," "Ms. Candy" and "Mr. Soda." Seemingly designed to whet the appetite of moviegoers and to motivate them to head for the concession stand, the animated food characters are singing,"Everybody’s goin’ to the movies. Everybody’s goin’ to the movies."
But the happy, upbeat feel takes an unexpectedly confrontational, yet comedic, detour when an usher informs "Mr. Hotdog," "Mr. Popcorn," "Ms. Candy" and "Mr. Soda" that the movie started 15 minutes ago. "Soda, you said you were going to check the show times on Moviefone," declares Mr. Hotdog.
"Candy said she did," retorts Mr. Soda.
"Hey, you want a piece of me?" challenges Ms. Candy.
The battle begins with Ms. Candy throwing confections at Mr. Soda; he delivers a drop kick to her, and a battle ensues, martial arts-style.
A voiceover intervenes to warn, "Don’t let this happen to you." Then against the background of a red theater curtain we see the Moviefone logo and insets of a roughed-up Mr. Hotdog and Mr. Popcorn. They’re using the telephone and the Internet to call the toll-free Moviefone number and to log on to www.moviefone. com. (The phone and Web site address appear as supers.) The spot ends with "Soda" and "Weenie" going at each other again.
The spot has been running in movie theaters throughout North America and is slated to air on TV.
"A Fistful of Popcorn" was directed by Jonas Odell of Stockholm-based animation studio Filmtecknarna, which teamed on the production with New York-based Curious Pictures. The ad agency for AOL Moviefone is Mad Dogs and Englishmen, New York.
"The brief," related director/designer Odell, "was to create a traditional cinema cartoon that gradually developed into something more contemporary. We achieved this through a mixture of traditional cel animation and 3-D CG."
The agency creative team consisted of creative director/art director Guy Seese, copywriters Jaime Palmiotti and James Robinson, art director Travis Britton and producer Sandi Bacham.
Filmtecknarna’s ensemble of talent included producer Leila El-Zein, animators Luca Fattore and Hans Hagerstrom, and digital artists Maria Nordstrom, Per Helin and Nadia El-Zein, with layout by Odell and Nick Hewitt and color coordination by Stanley Gamla. Richard Winkler executive produced for Curious Pictures.
Tape House Digital Film, New York, outputted to film, with Christian Zak and Charles Kouzoujian serving as technical directors. Audio mixers were Bob Giammarco of Lower East Side, New York,and Hoover Le via JSM, New York.
Doug Katsaros of JSM composed and arranged the music, additionally serving as instrumentalist and a vocalist.
