BBDO NY, SMUGGLER score TV Academy honor for public service spot directed by Henry-Alex Rubin
By Robert Goldrich
LOS ANGELES --Sandy Hook Promise’s “Back-to-School Essentials”–directed by Henry-Alex Rubin of SMUGGLER for BBDO New York–won the primetime commercial Emmy on Saturday (9/19), the fifth and concluding night of the Creative Arts Emmy Awards.
The public service piece starts off as a familiar back-to-school ad but slowly unfolds to highlight students using everyday back-to-school items to survive an outbreak of gun violence, shedding light on the gruesome reality that youngsters face in the reality of classroom and campus shootings.
The second time proved to be the charm for Sandy Hook Promise which had been nominated two consecutive years for the primetime commercial Emmy. While Sandy Hook Promise’s “Point of View” PSA fell short last year–with the win going to Nike’s “Dream Crazy”–this time around “Back-to-School Essentials” took the Emmy, topping a field which consisted of: Amazon’s “Before Alexa,” directed by Steve Rogers via Somesuch x Revolver for Droga5 London; Apple AirPods’ “Bounce,” directed by Oscar Hudson of Pulse Films for TBWAMedia Arts Lab; Jeep’s “Groundhog Day,” helmed by Jim Jenkins of O Positive for Highdive Advertising; and Procter & Gamble’s “The Look, directed by Anthony Mandler via Stink Films (he has since moved over to production house Arts & Sciences) for agency Saturday Morning.
“Back-to-School Essentials” was lensed by DP Autumn Durald Arkapaw and cut by Jason Macdonald of NO6 Edit. Music house was JSM Music with audio post and sound design from Heard City.
“We are honored and humbled that the Academy chose to recognize ‘Back-to-School Essentials’ for Outstanding Commercial. As a nonprofit organization, our mission is to end school shootings and prevent violence that harms children. The only way that can happen is if parents understand the real fears our kids have, and take action, including learning the warning signs of potential violence and speaking up,” said Nicole Hockley, co-founder and managing director of Sandy Hook Promise and mother of Dylan who was killed in the Sandy Hook tragedy. “We are grateful to our creative partners, BBDO New York and Smuggler Productions, for helping us develop innovative ways to reach as many people as possible with this life-saving message–and to our media partners for the donated airtime that brings the PSA into millions of homes nationwide.”
The Emmy win adds to BBDO’s rich history with the Television Academy. It’s the fourth commercial Emmy bestowed upon BBDO NY. BBDO won the very first primetime commercial Emmy in 1997 for HBO’s “Chimps.” The agency won again for FedEx’s “Stick in 2006. And in 2018, BBDO NY garnered the Emmy for Procter & Gamble’s “The Talk.” (BBDO also won an Emmy in the Image category for HBO’s “Foreman” in 1991.) Over the years BBDO NY has received 18 primetime commercial Emmy Award nominations.
Carrie Coon Relishes Being Part Of An Ensemble–From “The Gilded Age” To “His Three Daughters”
It can be hard to catch Carrie Coon on her own.
She is far more likely to be found in the thick of an ensemble. That could be on TV, in "The Gilded Age," for which she was just Emmy nominated, or in the upcoming season of "The White Lotus," which she recently shot in Thailand. Or it could be in films, most relevantly, Azazel Jacobs' new drama, "His Three Daughters," in which Coon stars alongside Natasha Lyonne and Elizabeth Olsen as sisters caring for their dying father.
But on a recent, bright late-summer morning, Coon is sitting on a bench in the bucolic northeast Westchester town of Pound Ridge. A few years back, she and her husband, the playwright Tracy Letts, moved near here with their two young children, drawn by the long rows of stone walls and a particularly good BLT from a nearby cafe that Letts, after biting into, declared must be within 15 miles of where they lived.
In a few days, they would both fly to Los Angeles for the Emmys (Letts was nominated for his performance in "Winning Time" ). But Coon, 43, was then largely enmeshed in the day-to-day life of raising a family, along with their nightly movie viewings, which Letts pulls from his extensive DVD collection. The previous night's choice: "Once Around," with Holly Hunter and Richard Dreyfus.
Coon met Letts during her breakthrough performance in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe?" on Broadway in 2012. She played the heavy-drinking housewife Honey. It was the first role that Coon read and knew, viscerally, she had to play. Immediately after saying this, Coon sighs.
"It sounds like something some diva would say in a movie from the '50s," Coon says. "I just walked around in my apartment in my slip and I had pearls and a little brandy. I made a grocery list and I just did... Read More