Microsoft Advertising’s Branded Entertainment and Experiences Team (BEET) has dovetailed with ad agencies Walton Isaacson, bicoastal and Chicago (creative), and Team One, El Segundo, Calif. (media), to shepherd Fresh Perspectives, a new web series directed by The Sniper Twins of BRW USA for client the Lexus CT Hybrid. The series debuted on MSN.com last week.
The webisodes focus on six young artists in different mediums, tasked to create original pieces of art within 24 hours around the themes of “escape,” “challenge” and “empower.” The artisans are chef Craig Thornton, painter/collagist Augustine Kofie, fashion designer Robert James, paper sculptor Jeff Nishinaka, singer-songwriter V and photographer Tod Seelie.
Fashion designer James, for example, sets out to create a jacket in 24 hours to meet the “challenge” theme. Chef Thornton embodies “escape” with the welcomed distraction of creating “forest flavors on a plate.” Painter Kofie translates “empower” into an orange colored creation. Seelie “escapes” by lensing on location in “the far end” of Brooklyn and Queens. Songwriter/vocalist V pens and performs a song designed to “empower” young girls.
The Sniper Twins collaborated with Team One, Walton Isaacson and Lexus. UTAOnline packaged the show and brought the opportunity to the Sniper Twins to direct and BRW to produce. They also brought on Yosi Sergent’s Taskforce to help cast the artists who would best tie in with the Lexus brand and the CT Hybrid. The series was shot over eight days–five in Los Angeles and three days in New York–on the Canon 7D. The DP was Aaron Platt The webisodes follow the artists as they complete their works of art and examine how art is defined in a different “fresh” perspective.
The original series, BRW USA’s first venture into branded entertainment, is an example of the growing trend toward programs with more subtle branding. Director Barry Flanagan–who along with Dax Martinez-Vargas comprise the Sniper Twins–observed, “There are exciting opportunities now for branded content where companies and agencies can get behind the projects as sponsorship and come up with really creative content.” The Fresh Perspectives campaign focuses less on the Lexus name and more on what the Lexus brand, and more specifically, the new Lexus CT Hybrid, represents. As all brands are becoming more social, this method is an ideal way for Lexus to take a more content-driven approach to connecting with consumers.
Altogether, 45 different videos were produced for the project, including artist bios and time-lapsed imagery of each art project in process. The Fresh Perspectives hub page will also feature written profiles on the artists and features of 30 additional artists.
Fresh Perspectives is part of a multifaceted marketing campaign for the CT Hybrid, “Darker Side of Green,” which launched on March 1 and features unconventional creative and media executions.
The Microsoft BEET contingent included brand strategists Sara Clark and Eric Day, brand solutions manager Jessica Lowe, managing editor Steven Wiens, editor Monica Fischer, creative director Jeremy Grubaugh, sr. user experience lead Kris Bergen and user experience designer Richard Worsfold.
The BRW USA ensemble included managing director/sr. executive producer Andy Traines, exec producer Gianfilippo Pedrotti, production supervisor Robert Gustafson and line producer Ari Weiner.
Click 3X also figured in the mix, with VFX creative director Ders Hallgren, VFX managing director David Edelstein, exec producer Rob Meyers, producer Maddy Yasner, animator Dave Rogers, and editors Rob James, Emily Sheskin, Sam Goetz and Nicole Turney.
The audio post team from YouTooCanWoo consisted of David Perlick-Molani, Deidre Muro and Paul Hammer.
Here’s a taste of Fresh Perspectives:
Netflix Series “The Leopard” Spots Classic Italian Novel, Remakes It As A Sumptuous Period Drama
"The Leopard," a new Netflix series, takes the classic Italian novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa and transforms it into a sumptuous period piece showing the struggles of the aristocracy in 19th-century Sicily, during tumultuous social upheavals as their way of life is crumbling around them.
Tom Shankland, who directs four of the eight episodes, had the courage to attempt his own version of what is one of the most popular films in Italian history. The 1963 movie "The Leopard," directed by Luchino Visconti, starring Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon and Claudia Cardinale, won the Palme d'Or in Cannes.
One Italian critic said that it would be the equivalent of a director in the United States taking "Gone with the Wind" and turning it into a series, but Shankland wasn't the least bit intimidated.
He said that he didn't think of anything other than his own passion for the project, which grew out of his love of the book. His father was a university professor of Italian literature in England, and as a child, he loved the book and traveling to Sicily with his family.
The book tells the story of Don Fabrizio Corbera, the Prince of Salina, a tall, handsome, wealthy aristocrat who owns palaces and land across Sicily.
His comfortable world is shaken with the invasion of Sicily in 1860 by Giuseppe Garibaldi, who was to overthrow the Bourbon king in Naples and bring about the Unification of Italy.
The prince's family leads an opulent life in their magnificent palaces with servants and peasants kowtowing to their every need. They spend their time at opulent banquets and lavish balls with their fellow aristocrats.
Shankland has made the series into a visual feast with tables heaped with food, elaborate gardens and sensuous costumes.... Read More