“Click,” a :30 for Unilever’s Country Crock that runs online and on TV, combines live-action and motion-control footage to show a sequence of empty and food laden plates that promote the company’s philanthropic effort SpreadtheSharing.com. At the site, consumers are asked to click on an empty plate and contribute their stories of sharing. For each story, Country Crock will make a donation to America’s Second Harvest, the nation’s food bank network.
The spot begins with a live-action shot of empty plates on place mats on a dinner table. It segues into a motion-control sequence of plates that fill up with food at the click of a mouse. The sequence fuses with the Country Crock logo, which was shot live action as the spot concludes.
The spot relied on “gently applied motion control,” according to Alex Fernbach, Owner/Director/Cameraman of ARF & CO/Hoboken, N.J., the production co. that produced the spot for Stone & Simons Advertising/Southfield, Mich. “We built a large platform designed with an initial series of place mats and food. As the camera tilts down to look at the food we matched the first place mat into the matrix of place mats. As the camera tilted up, we added additional place mats and as it tilted down again we made our change into the sea of place mats. We did 40-50 motion control camera passes with empty plates. They were replaced with food at the post house, so food pops up at the click of the mouse.”
Guy Atzmon, designer at rhinofx/New York, explained how the shots of empty plates suddenly had food on them in response to the click. “They shot one pass of empty plates with multiple passes of different food on the plates, and we brought in the food in post. We switched to the take of food on the plates,” he said, explaining that it was a computer-generated image that used the real shots of food. The spot concluded with separate layers of plates that formed the Country Crock logo that transitioned to the actual logo. “It was a computer-generated transition of the logo made of plates to the live-action version,” he said.
Victoria Webb, vice president/account supervisor at Stone & Simons, lauded the production team on the spot. “Country Crock usually runs traditional commercials. This was a tech departure for us and the team was fantastic,” she said. The spot began running at Spreadthesharing.com and YouTube before its April 2 TV launch date.
Director Dag Johan Haugerud’s “Dreams (Sex Love)” Wins Top Prize At The Berlin Film Festival
A Norwegian film about love, desire and self-discovery won top honors at the 75th Berlin International Film Festival on Saturday.
A jury headed by American director Todd Haynes awarded the Golden Bear trophy to "Dreams (Sex Love)" by director Dag Johan Haugerud.
Haynes called it a "meditation on love" that "cuts you to the quick with its keen intelligence."
The film focuses on a teenager played by Ella Øverbyer, infatuated with her female French teacher, and the reactions of her mother and grandmother when they discover her private writings. It's the third part of a trilogy Haugerud has completed in the past year. "Sex" premiered at Berlin in 2024, and "Love" was screened at the 2024 Venice Film Festival.
The runner-up Silver Bear prize went to Brazilian director Gabriel Mascaro's dystopian drama "The Blue Trail." Argentine director Ivan Fund's rural saga "The Message" won the third-place Jury Prize.
The best director prize went to Huo Meng for "Living the Land," set in fast-changing 1990s China.
Rose Byrne was named best performer for her role as an overwhelmed mother in the Mary Bronstein-directed "If I Had Legs, I'd Kick You." Andrew Scott won the supporting performer trophy for playing composer Richard Rodgers in Richard Linklater's "Blue Moon."
The climax of the festival known as the Berlinale came on the eve of Germany's parliamentary elections after a campaign dominated by migration and the economy.
The national election is being held seven months early, after Chancellor Olaf Scholz's governing coalition collapsed in a dispute about how to revitalize the country's economy.
Efforts to curb migration have emerged as a central issue in the campaign — along with the question of how to handle the... Read More