SELECTED SHORTS FROM JOHN ST.Toronto ad agency john st has wrapped a three-spot campaign for Stanfield’s underwear, including “Meat Locker,” featuring a tour of a meat plant in which our guide directs us to an industrial deep freezer that bottoms out at minus 55 degrees. That temperature, says the guide, is enough to freeze a person’s skin in a matter of just a few minutes so no one wants to be stuck in there. He slides open the freezer’s heavy metal door and–to the guide and his guests’ surprise–revealed is a guy talking on a cell phone, seemingly cool (but not frozen) and comfortable. A bit peeved that his phone conversation has been interrupted, the gent closes the door on his uninvited company and keeps on chatting. An end tag carries the slogan, “You don’t have to see them to know who’s wearing them,” a reference to Stanfield’s “Polar-therm” line of underwear. The other two TV spots showcase the manhood of those who wear Stanfield’s regular underwear. In “Guy’s Night Out,” for example, a guy is asked by his office cohorts to join them for a beer after work. At first gung-ho in accepting the invitation, he then backs off, explaining that he has to take his wife to a book club meeting that night. Clearly this man’s masculinity comes up short as evidenced by the shorts he’s wearing that are clearly not Stanfield’s. The TV campaign was directed by Michael Downing of OPC, Toronto (he’s repped stateside by harvest, Santa Monica). The john st creative team included creative directors Stephen Jurisic and Angus Tucker, copywriter Chris Hirsch, art director Nellie Kim and producer Michelle Orlando. The DP was Tico Poulakakis. Editor was Brian Wells of School Editing, Toronto….
TAKING HD BY STORMGlobal ImageWorks (GIW), Haworth, N.J., has exclusive HD footage of Hurricane Dean’s fury and aftermath from Kingston as the category 4 storm battered the southern coast of Jamaica. Also in the HD disasters’ realm, GIW has video of the fire that gutted the 300 room Pegasus Hotel in Kingston, Jamaica, which is where Pakistan cricket coach Bob Woolmer was found dead back in March….
PEOPLE IN THE NEWSChristopher “Pink” Bonnstetter has joined Riot/New York as CG supervisor where he will be responsible for expanding the shop’s CG/visual effects operation. He assumes the staff position after having built a successful “permalance” career that included stints at such studios as Asylum, Believe, Hydraulx and Money Shots. His most recent credits include contributing to effects for such features as Alien vs. Predator 2, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer and The Invasion. Pink began working on commercials and music videos at Asylum as well. Among his ad credits are spots for Ford, Nintendo, Boeing, Chevy and Coke. He has worked on music videos for such artists as Outkast, Metallica, The Offspring and Dave Matthews Band…Elizabeth Lascoutx, formerly director of the Children’s Advertising Review Unit (CARU) of the Council of Better Business Bureaus, has joined New York media/entertainment law firm Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz as counsel. The hire is in response to increased regulatory concerns about marketing directed at children….
Hollywood’s Oscar Season Turns Into A Pledge Drive In Midst Of L.A. Wildfires
When the Palisades Fire broke out in Los Angeles last Tuesday, Hollywood's awards season was in full swing. The Golden Globes had transpired less than 48 hours earlier and a series of splashy awards banquets followed in the days after.
But the enormity of the destruction in Southern California has quickly snuffed out all festiveness in the movie industry's high season of celebration. At one point, the flames even encroached on the hillside above the Dolby Theatre, the home of the Academy Awards.
The fires have struck at the very heart of a movie industry still trying to stabilize itself after years of pandemic, labor turmoil and technological upheaval. Not for the first time this decade, the Oscars are facing the question of: Should the show go on? And if it does, what do they mean now?
"With ALL due respect during Hollywood's season of celebration, I hope any of the networks televising the upcoming awards will seriously consider NOT televising them and donating the revenue they would have gathered to victims of the fires and the firefighters," "Hacks" star Jean Smart, a recent Globe winner, wrote on Instagram.
The Oscars remain as scheduled, but it's certain that they will be transformed due to the wildfires, and that most of the red-carpet pomp that typically stretches between now and then will be curtailed if not altogether canceled. With so many left without a home by the fires, there's scant appetite for the usual self-congratulatory parades of the season.
Focus has turned, instead, to what the Oscars might symbolize for a traumatized Los Angeles. The Oscars have never meant less, but, at the same time, they might be more important than ever as a beacon of perseverance for the reeling movie capital.
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