Global Mechanic's Bruce Alcock Directs PSA For The Loving Spoonful
By Robert Goldrich
By examining different types of fuel, this :30 titled “Food” for AIDS charity The Loving Spoonful fuels the mind, heart and soul. We open on a fish, with its gills gasping for air. Beneath it is a supered uppercase word, “OXYGEN.”
From the fish thrashing about out of water on a wooden pier, the spot segues to time lapse photography of flowers wilting. The bouquet dies to the accompaniment of another single word super: “WATER.”
Next, a car slows down and then finally comes to a halt. The super: “FUEL.”
A mini-windmill loses it momentum and comes to a standstill. A super reads, “WIND.”
Next, a small light bulb flickers and then fades out completely. The super: “POWER.”
Finally, we see a young woman slowly, gingerly make her way to a bed, on which she sits. Frail looking, the woman has seemingly expended nearly all of her energy to reach her perch in the center of a barren apartment. A super reads: “FOOD.”
The theme is clear and then put into proper, albeit alarming, perspective as the supers graduate from one word to a full sentence: “80% of people living with AIDS are malnourished.”
A slogan then appears: “A Loving Spoonful For AIDS Hunger Relief.” This is accompanied by a Web site address: www.alovingspoonful.org.
The Loving Spoonful is a Canadian volunteer group that provides meals to people living with AIDS. Ad agency Rethink, Vancouver, B.C., came up with the concept, which was largely presented in the form of five words–OXYGEN, WATER, FUEL , WIND AND POWER–to production company Global Mechanic, Boston and Vancouver.
“We were challenged by the agency to do what we say we love to do and that is craft visuals which elicit an emotion,” related Global Mechanic executive producer Matthew Charde. “With no boundaries except for a script that had five words in it, we were set free to build the spot.”
Global Mechanic’s creative director Bruce Alcock directed the :30, fashioning a combination of touching live action scenes with elegant type design. Citing the 80 percent statistic, Alcock observed that the malnutrition plight as it relates to AIDS “conjures up some heart-breaking imagery to me. I felt that mixing type design with stark and simple filmed images related to losing energy would convey the metaphor of malnutrition. There needed to be a desperate beauty to what the viewer sees in the film.”
Alcock also edited and handled the design as well as type animation for the spot. He laid the foundation for the piece in live action, which is a bit of a departure from the norm for him; Alcock is best known for his mixed media, combo live-action/animation fare.
The Rethink ensemble consisted of creative director Ian Grais, art director Rob Sweetman, copywriter Bryan Collins and producer Christine Pacheco.
Alcock’s support team at Global Mechanic included exec producer Charde, senior producer Tina Ouellette and line producer Sarah Duncan. The spot was shot on location in British Columbia by Warren Hansen. The principal actress was Kerri Caine.
Colorist was Gary Shaw of Toy Box, Vancouver. Audio post mixer and composer was Craig Zarazun of Wave Productions, Vancouver. The spot is airing in Canada.
After 20 Years of Acting, Megan Park Finds Her Groove In The Director’s Chair On “My Old Ass”
Megan Park feels a little bad that her movie is making so many people cry. It's not just a single tear either — more like full body sobs.
She didn't set out to make a tearjerker with "My Old Ass," now streaming on Prime Video. She just wanted to tell a story about a young woman in conversation with her older self. The film is quite funny (the dialogue between 18-year-old and almost 40-year-old Elliott happens because of a mushroom trip that includes a Justin Bieber cover), but it packs an emotional punch, too.
Writing, Park said, is often her way of working through things. When she put pen to paper on "My Old Ass," she was a new mom and staying in her childhood bedroom during the pandemic. One night, she and her whole nuclear family slept under the same roof. She didn't know it then, but it would be the last time, and she started wondering what it would be like to have known that.
In the film, older Elliott ( Aubrey Plaza ) advises younger Elliott ( Maisy Stella ) to not be so eager to leave her provincial town, her younger brothers and her parents and to slow down and appreciate things as they are. She also tells her to stay away from a guy named Chad who she meets the next day and discovers that, unfortunately, he's quite cute.
At 38, Park is just getting started as a filmmaker. Her first, "The Fallout," in which Jenna Ortega plays a teen in the aftermath of a school shooting, had one of those pandemic releases that didn't even feel real. But it did get the attention of Margot Robbie 's production company LuckyChap Entertainment, who reached out to Park to see what other ideas she had brewing.
"They were very instrumental in encouraging me to go with it," Park said. "They're just really even-keeled, good people, which makes... Read More