In a state of emergency, the women and children come first—except in a small village where the rescue effort centers on something else quite "precious."
We open on a parked car covered in black ash. The camera reveals in the distance the cause of this black rain—a volcano that has blown its top. The lava flow has resulted in small fires throughout a European village. We see two women carting off their worldly possessions, scurrying away from danger. A man is carrying another person to safety, but he puts down his human cargo upon hearing a villager scream, "The bar!"
Another woman interjects with a sense of justifiable priority, "But the orphanage … " However, her call to sanity is ignored as villagers instead rush to the pub. On the way, we see a power pole topple, other villagers trying to hose down scattered fires, a heavyset woman in undergarments rushing to take her wash off an outdoor clothesline, and a hog in heaven. The latter is munching on a wedding cake that was probably on display in a bakery window before the lava rolled into town.
Yet in the middle of this gloom, chaos and confusion, the male citizenry has found a curious rallying point: a tavern, which is charred yet still standing. A wall has given way to reveal kegs of ale. One keg has fallen to the ground, where the heat causes it to burst, spraying ale at a group of townspeople.
Lava-heated ground, fire and burning embers make it next to impossible to get into the pub—that is, until one brave soul, the aforementioned man who dropped a person to come to the rescue of the tavern, takes off his shoes and walks barefooted toward his desired destination.
He disappears from view as he enters the bar. Silent onlookers watch, their faces carrying expressions of desperation, with flickers of faint hope. The feeling of tension is palpable, but happily broken when the man emerges out of the burnt-out building, hoisting into the air two glasses of ale. The bar is still in good working order. The crowd rejoices as out of the ashes, a party has arisen. The darkened sky is in sharp contrast to the figurative light reflected in the buoyed spirits of the town’s inhabitants who have poured into the tavern. Guinness flows freer than the lava did in this curious display of pub celebration. However, there’s cause for pause when a group of women arrive on the scene, incredulous that their male counterparts are whooping it up in the midst of a town in ruins.
Supered across the scene is a one-word message: "Believe," accompanied by a Web site address (guinness.com).
"Lava" was directed by Rupert Sanders of London-based Outsider for agency AMV BBDO, London. Sanders is repped stateside by Omaha Pictures, Santa Monica.
The agency team consisted of creative director Peter Souter, copywriter Tony Strong, art director Mike Durban and producer Yvonne Chalkley.
Robert Campbell was executive producer for Outsider, with Paul McPadden serving as producer. Also facilitating the shoot were Stillking Films, London, and Cracow and Warsaw, Poland, with their respective executive producers Richard Skepper and Adrian Ciaglinski. The spot was shot by DP Jess Hall.
Editor was Neil Smith of The Whitehouse, London. Artisans from The Mill, London, were colorist Fergus McCall, CGI artist Russell Tickner and Flame artist/ online editor Antony Walsham. Audio mixer was Johnnie Burns of Wave Studios, London.
The band Menlo Park composed the music used in the soundtrack and worked with the project’s sound designer—Pete Rayburn of Soundtree Music, London—to adapt it to the commercial.
