Inaction and the absence of the spoken word speak volumes in this humorous :30 promoting The Brick, a chain of appliance and electronics retail stores in Canada. Titled "Driveway," the spot opens on a close-up of a girl sipping on a straw. She stares blankly at something which the camera has yet to reveal. A longer shot shows her holding a cup and standing by her parked bicycle.
Cut to an overhead shot of a man from the shoulders up, laid out horizontally on a stone-dotted surface. He’s breathing heavily, and looks exhausted.
Another cut gives us the close-up of a dog—immovable, expectant, watching.
A three-shot brings them all together. The setting is middle-class suburbia. The girl and the dog are standing in the street, near the driveway of a house with an attached garage. Both stare at the man, still flat on his back, virtually motionless. The back hatch of his nearby sports utility vehicle is wide open, and on the driveway between the man and the SUV stands a huge cardboard box. It undoubtedly contains a large home appliance which the man tried to unload from the SUV and bring into his home—to no avail.
The Brick logo is supered across the screen, identifying the retailer as the place to buy appliances and electronics. A simple message appears below the logo: "Free home delivery now available."
If only our prostrate protagonist had known about free delivery, he could have avoided his fate. The commercial concludes with the girl and the dog continuing to observe the situation—an edifying moment, frozen in time.
Noam Murro of Hollywood-based Biscuit filmworks directed "Driveway." Since this job is for a Canadian agency, it was produced via Industry Films, Toronto. Biscuit’s Shawn Lacy Tessaro served as executive producer, with Carissa Buffel producing. (Murro and Tessaro are Biscuit’s founding partners.) DP Eric Schmidt shot the commercial on location in Richmond, B.C.
The spot was conceived by a creative team at Palmer Jarvis DDB, Toronto, consisting of creative director Randy Stein, associate creative director/art director/ copywriter James Lee, executive producer Tina Petridis and producer Sue Bell.
Jayne Morris of Berry Post, Vancouver, B.C., was offline/online editor. Claudio Sepulveda and Todd Liddiard of Vancouver-based Northwest Imaging served as colorist and Inferno artist, respectively. Audio engineer/sound designer was Colin Weinmaster of Wave Productions, Vancouver.
