The AICP has launched a series of short films to promote the call for entries to the 2015 AICP Awards–the AICP Show and AICP Next Awards. The campaign, under the banner “Craft Your Legacy,” is viewable at www.craft-your-legacy.com, and promotes the fact the all winning work in the AICP Awards is permanently archived by the Department of Film at The Museum of Modern Art. The call for entries for the AICP Show and AICP Next Awards is now open here.
AICP partnered with director Brian Billow of O Positive to task several of today’s most innovative and well-respected creative directors to imagine in tongue-in-cheek fashion what their lives might be like 35 years from now, and how having their work archived in MoMA’s prestigious film archive might factor into their legacy. Each piece–which was imagined and scripted by the subject–features a documentary style interview of a “senior avatar.”
Showcased are: Rob Reilly of McCann (this year’s Next Awards Judging Chair); Gerry Graf of Barton F. Graf 9000; Tor Myhren of Grey; Tiffany Rolfe of co:collective; and Ted Royer of Droga5. In each scenario–set in 2050–all note that whatever their “current” lot in life, their legacies are intact because their work is safely preserved in the MoMA archive as result of having won an AICP Award. All end with the tagline: “Craft Your Legacy. We’ll Protect It.”
In the short featuring and titled "Gerry Graf," we see a broken-down yet still fairly feisty senior citizen who laments over a turning point in his personal life–losing his wife to BBDO’s David Lubars who in turn legally adopted Graf’s kids. It all went downhill from there, recalled Graf who sold his creatively inspired boutique agency to a huge multi-national holding company. Still he managed to retain in the deal his own office on the premises. Sadly, his office is in an office supply storage closet. He noted that his kids–make that Lubars’ kids–think he’s a loser. Graf added, however, that his kids don’t have a Ragu commercial in MoMA’s film archive. The kids, he said, had no comeback for that, meaning Graf was the ultimate winner.
Reilly and Graf (who was last year’s Next Awards Judging Chair), working with AICP president and CEO Matt Miller, conceived the concept for the campaign.
“Every year we try to articulate in different ways how this continuing archival project is much more than just an individual award,” noted Miller. “This campaign reminds all sectors of the industry that now is the time to submit their work for consideration – and now is the time to shape how they are remembered.”
The deadline to enter the AICP Awards is February 27. The AICP Show and AICP Next Awards both premiere during AICP Week, which takes place June 2-4.
