Just when a young girl is finding it hard to believe in the spirit of the holidays, she and her brother discover a pen with magical wish-granting powers. The siblings then spread the magic of giving and generosity throughout town—one wish at a time. That’s the Xmas story captured in this short film for Macy’s directed by Filip Engstrom of Smuggler for J. Walter Thompson New York.
Titled The Wish Writer, this centerpiece short leads to the story continuing digitally with a Santa letter-writing app inviting kids to write their most magical letter to Santa. The app also includes 12 games and activities that teach how the spirit of generosity makes the season brighter:
Furthermore the campaign entailed the creation of The Wish Writer product. A magical pen that is inspired by the one in the film (and meant to accompany the app), this product has been put on the shelves at Macy’s stores across the country, and is a physical invitation to the holiday campaign. Keeping in Macy’s tradition of generosity, a portion of the proceeds from all app and Wish Writer purchases will go to the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
Helping to story advance are music and sound design from Yessian New York with Brian Yessian serving as chief creative officer, Dan Zank as composer/arranger, Weston Fonger as sound designer and audio post mixer, Gerard Smerek as creative mixer/music, and Marlene Bartos as executive producer.
Creative challenge, working rapport
Regarding the creative challenges posed by The Wish Writer, Bartos, who is EP/managing director of Yessian Music, New York, related, “Creating the music for a campaign like this is a big undertaking as you need to be telling a story and to evoke an emotional response. Our aim was to create a magical experience and give the viewer goosebumps. We had to write a theme that would draw people into the story and give them the sense that they are experiencing every moment with the boy and girl. And by the end of the film, the icing on the cake is if we have created a sound that sheds a tear or two.”
Helping meet those challenges was a track record of collaborating with Macy’s and J. Walter Thompson. “We have worked for Macy’s on several occasions over the years for holiday campaigns as well as their iconic ‘One Day Sale’ campaign that had been used for over five years,” said Bartos. “This project came together fairly quickly and we worked hand in hand with the J. Walter Thompson creative team and its music producer Paul Greco to craft something that would spark something magical. This was not a typical :30 or :60 TV commercial, it all stemmed from the original three-minuite film and from there we had to re-tell the story in :90/:30/:15 formats which is not always easy when you have the time to tell a story in three minutes initially. We were fortunate enough to have Paul along side us through the project working with composer Dan Zank, sound designer Weston Fonger and music mixer Gerard Smerek in our studios to craft and finesse the sound throughout the creative process.”
In addition to Greco, the J. Walter Thompson NY team included worldwide chief creative officer Matt Eastwood, NY CCO Adam Kerj, executive creative directors Jon Zast and Andy Carrigan, sr. art director Jordan Young, sr. copywriter Carl Mallia, head of integrated production Lisa Setten, head of digital production Jennifer Usdan McBride, executive producer/broadcast Mary Ellen Verrusio, sr. producer Chad Utsch, and project manager Savannah Enright.
The Mill LA served as visual effects house. Editors were Aaron Tompkins and Christopher Mitchell of Rock Paper Scissors.
