By Kristin Wilcha
NEW YORK—The Art Directors Club has unveiled the advertising winners for its 83rd annual awards competition. The honorees will be recognized during a gala awards presentation in New York on June 3. TBWA/Chiat/Day, Los Angeles, scored the most gold TV wins for its Apple iPod campaign, as well as for its Sony PlayStation work. Bicoastal/international @radical.media has earned two gold medals with its work on iPod for TBWA/ Chiat/Day, and for several Miller Brewing Company ads.
The iPod package, comprising the spots "Hip-Hop," "Rock" and "Dance," scored a gold campaign win for art direction. Dave Meyers of @radical.media directed the trio of commercials, earning the production company one of its gold honors. (The package additionally won silver for sound design, which was done by Francois Blaignon of Nomad Editing Company, Santa Monica, with stimm?ng, Santa Monica, handling music supervision.) TBWA/Chiat/Day earned a gold for a single spot with Sony PlayStation’s "Tractor Beam," directed by Dayton/Faris—Jonathan and Valerie, respectively—of bicoastal Bob Industries.
The Miller High Life ads "FlamZ," "Pager" and "Fox Hole," out of Wieden+Kennedy (W+K), Portland, Ore., and directed by Errol Morris of @radical.media scored a campaign gold win for the agency and the production company. Each ad was additionally honored with a silver win in the single spot category. Additionally, the New York office of W+K scored gold in the newly created multi-channel campaign category for ESPN/Sega’s online "Beta 7" campaign.
An MTV Networks promo package called "Watch and Learn" also scored a campaign gold. The three animated spots, "Gay/Straight," "Three Second Rule" and "Musical Instrument," were directed by Matt Vescovo and produced via bicoastal Hornet. Rounding out the gold wins were Evian’s "Waterboy," out of BETC Euro RSCG, Paris, and directed by the directing team So & Sau—Sophie Deiss and Jean-Christophe Saurel—of Wizz Productions, Paris; and Ilingua Language School’s "Eurolingo," out of Kolle Rebbe Werbeagentur, Hamburg, Germany, and directed by Christian Reimann and Moritz Gl?sle of Scheinfirma, Hamburg.
Steve McQueen Shows Wartime London Through A Child’s Eyes In “Blitz”
It was a single photograph that started Oscar-winning filmmaker Steve McQueen on the journey to make "Blitz." As a Londoner, the German bombing raids on the city during World War II are never all that far from his mind. Reminders of it are everywhere. But the spark of inspiration came from an image of a small boy on a train platform with a large suitcase. Stories inspired by the evacuation are not rare, but this child was Black. Who was he, McQueen wondered, and what was his story? The film, in theaters Friday and streaming on Apple TV+ on Nov. 22, tells the tale of George, a 9-year-old biracial child in East London whose life with his mother, Rita ( Saoirse Ronan ), and grandfather is upended by the war. Like many children at the time, he's put on a train to the countryside for his safety. But he hops off and starts a long, dangerous journey back to his mom, encountering all sorts of people and situations that paint a revelatory and emotional picture of that moment. SEARCHING FOR GEORGE AND FINDING A STAR When McQueen finished the screenplay, he thought to himself: "Not bad." Then he started to worry: Does George exist? Is there a person out there who can play this role? Through an open casting call they found Elliott Heffernan, a 9-year-old living just outside of London whose only experience was a school play. He was the genie in "Aladdin." "There was a stillness about him, a real silent movie star quality," McQueen said. "You wanted to know what he was thinking, and you leant in. That's a movie star quality: A presence in his absence." Elliott is now 11. When he was cast, he'd not yet heard about the evacuation and imagined that a film set would be made up of "about 100 people." But he soon found his footing, cycling in and out of... Read More