While job hunting takes on considerable weight and seriousness in light of rising unemployment and global economic woes, the :60 titled “Tips” that CareerBuilder.com debuted on the Super Bowl via Wieden+Kennedy, Portland, Ore., definitely tickles the funnybone, keeping with the client’s signature humor over the years while positioning the online site as a conduit to seeking helpful tips and real leads for gainful employment.
Directed by Tom Kuntz of bicoastal/international MJZ, the Super Bowl spot offers us several indicators that you’re in the wrong job and need to make a change. We open on a woman, for instance, who’s so distraught that she’s primal screaming in her car as she drives into her workplace parking lot. Other “tip-offs” that you should look for another gig include fantasizing about being elsewhere (we see the woman riding a dolphin through ocean waves), being regularly ridiculed by fellow workers (a man in deadpan fashion greets a guy who’s seated at a workstation with a cheerful “hey, dummy”), sitting next to an undesirable coworker (who’s dressed in Speedo swim trunks while clipping his toenails) and daydreaming about punching small animals (with a small cuddly, koala bear–who’s wearing eyeglasses–on the receiving end). These different tip-offs are recited and continually repeated in a Twelve Days of Xmas-like (yet not sing songy) fashion, heightening the absurdity as well as the all too real need felt by many that a change of job is imperative.
The end tag slogan “Start Building” appears on screen.
The W+K team included executive creative directors Mark Fitzloff and Susan Hoffman, creative directors Jason Bagley and Danielle Flagg, copywriter Eric Kallman, art director Craig Allen and producer Sarah Shapiro.
David Zander and Jeff Scruton exec produced for MJZ with Scott Kaplan serving as producer. The DP was Bryan Newman.
Editor was Gavin Cutler of Mackenzie Cutler, New York.
Method Studios, Santa Monica, was the VFX house, with animatronic animals from Stan Winston Studios, Van Nuys, Calif.
Netflix Series “The Leopard” Spots Classic Italian Novel, Remakes It As A Sumptuous Period Drama
"The Leopard," a new Netflix series, takes the classic Italian novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa and transforms it into a sumptuous period piece showing the struggles of the aristocracy in 19th-century Sicily, during tumultuous social upheavals as their way of life is crumbling around them.
Tom Shankland, who directs four of the eight episodes, had the courage to attempt his own version of what is one of the most popular films in Italian history. The 1963 movie "The Leopard," directed by Luchino Visconti, starring Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon and Claudia Cardinale, won the Palme d'Or in Cannes.
One Italian critic said that it would be the equivalent of a director in the United States taking "Gone with the Wind" and turning it into a series, but Shankland wasn't the least bit intimidated.
He said that he didn't think of anything other than his own passion for the project, which grew out of his love of the book. His father was a university professor of Italian literature in England, and as a child, he loved the book and traveling to Sicily with his family.
The book tells the story of Don Fabrizio Corbera, the Prince of Salina, a tall, handsome, wealthy aristocrat who owns palaces and land across Sicily.
His comfortable world is shaken with the invasion of Sicily in 1860 by Giuseppe Garibaldi, who was to overthrow the Bourbon king in Naples and bring about the Unification of Italy.
The prince's family leads an opulent life in their magnificent palaces with servants and peasants kowtowing to their every need. They spend their time at opulent banquets and lavish balls with their fellow aristocrats.
Shankland has made the series into a visual feast with tables heaped with food, elaborate gardens and sensuous costumes.... Read More