By Ken Liebeskind
LONDON --“You need to be a master of your environment, not a servant to it,” says Chase Armitage. “When I realized this, that’s when everything changed. That’s when I did my first slip.”
‘Slip’ is the new video ad for Xbox, from AKQA/London and Partizan that shows Armitage performing his parkour slip moves on the streets of London to promote three new Xbox games, which are shown at the end of the video.
“In all the games you have to control your environment, so we extended the idea and made the story about the guy who does extraordinary things,” said James Hilton, AKQA’s co-founder/creative director. “He bends space and dimensions when he slips in and out of his moves.”
Armitage, a noted parkour athlete and editor of www.3run.co.uk, a free-running site, jumps off buildings and hurls through the air in a series of slip moves, as he narrates the video to explain the master your environment philosophy.
The video was shot in the Southbank section of London, which features classic modernist architecture “that looks good on camera and is good to jump around,” said Matt Tucker, Partizan’s producer.
Tucker said the shoot was straight ahead–“he led us around and we pointed the camera at him,” but it was a little more complicated than that because four cameras were used for different effects. A small pinhole camera recorded close body shots. “We hadn’t seen it before, no one had put a camera on a person who’s running,” Tucker said. A small Swedish Iconix camera provided “a different kind of texture, for more grainy low file shots,” he said. A standard Sony 900 camera produced “straight shots that weren’t specific,” he said. And a Weiff camera was used for slow motion footage.
The result is a video that shows an exciting parkour performance that ends with a shot of the three new games on a wall that Armitage leaps over. It is becoming customary not to show products in broadband video advertising until the end of the spot. As Hilton noted, “It’s about engaging people in the story, so we didn’t want to show the box shots all the time. The game market is flooded with in-game footage and every game looks the same. We’re interested in engaging the consumer in the story and maintaining engagement until the end. It makes it far more interesting.”
‘Slip’ plays at www.xbox.com/master and at YouTube.
“Heretic” and “Maria” Set As Red Carpet Premieres At AFI Fest
The American Film Institute (AFI) has announced that Heretic, the psychological thriller starring Hugh Grant, and Maria, based on the life of opera singer Maria Callas starring Angelina Jolie, will round out the Red Carpet Premieres section at this year’s AFI Fest. The Heretic Gala Screening will take place on Thursday, October 24, and the Maria Gala Screening will be held on Saturday, October 26. The complete Red Carpet Premieres section includes the world premieres of Music By John Williams, Robert Zemeckis’ Here, Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl and Clint Eastwood’s Juror #2. All Red Carpet Premieres will take place at the historic TCL Chinese Theatre. The full lineup for AFI Fest 2024 will be unveiled on October 1.
“At the heart of AFI Fest is an unwavering dedication to celebrating the best in global cinema--together,” said Bob Gazzale, AFI president and CEO. “We look forward to uniting artists and audiences once again to be inspired by the art form in a powerful sense of community.”
Heretic follows two young missionaries (Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East) who are forced to prove their faith when they knock on the wrong door and are greeted by a diabolical Mr. Reed (portrayed by Grant), becoming ensnared in his deadly game of cat-and-mouse. The film is directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods and produced by Stacey Sher, Beck, Woods, Julia Glausi and Jeanette Volturno. The film will be released nationwide by A24 on November 8.
Directed by Pablo Larraín, Maria presents a tumultuous and beautiful depiction of one of the world’s most renowned artists and reimagines the legendary soprano in her final days in Paris, as Callas (Jolie)... Read More