Home Box, a furniture retailer in the Middle East, launched this short film from creative agency Leo Burnett Dubai. The short features real domestic workers, based in the Middle East, telling their own stories, describing their favorite place in the homes they work in. Out of all the places they speak about, one room remains hidden: their own room.
The film was inspired from research where Home Box and Leo Burnett asked 329 domestic workers about their favorite place in the homes they work in, and out of all the places they spoke about, the workers’ living space, remained unmentioned.
Through this premise, the film addresses an inequality delicately and sensitively. Expat domestic workers are employed in many homes in the Middle East, often working for years for the same families, living away from their own families. They come from all over the world. But while they work in towering skyscrapers and big villas, their rooms remain very small spaces–typically 7 feet x 10 feet, but sometimes even smaller. These rooms are often furnished with second-hand or third-hand furniture, mismatched, worn out or dingy.
So, “The Hidden Room Collection” was created by the agency, Leo Burnett Dubai. It’s a specially curated collection, designed in collaboration with Home Box’s design team, that provides beautifully designed furniture and furnishing items for the small spaces where domestic workers live. With these smart living solutions, Home Box can help to transform these spaces, so people feel at home in the homes they work in.
The film, framed intentionally in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, creates the boxed-up feeling that they feel in their constrained and restrictive living space.
The camera movement is slow and lingers. Visually, the lenses used were chosen to feel like ’70-’80’s vignetting, with specially created LUTs and rehoused vintage optics recreating an analog film look.
For the colors and lights, the film was not shot in clean white light. The shots are always filtered with a hint of blue, gray or dim yellow. Frequent moments in blue lighting cue us into inner sadness and loneliness, balanced with frequent moments of dim yellow lighting that help tap into the darker side of yellow, hinting at depression and loneliness.
Tahaab Rais, chief strategy officer for Publicis Groupe Middle East and Turkey (parent to Burnett Dubai), directed this “Hidden Room” short.
CreditsClient Home Box Creative Agency Leo Burnett Dubai Bassel Kakish, CEO, Publicis Groupe, ME&T; Kalpesh Patankar, chief creative officer & creative direction, Leo Burnett Dubai; Tahaab Rais, chief strategy officer, Publicis Groupe ME&T, and film director, story and sound design; Shereen Mostafa, head of production, Leo Burnett; Aunindo Sen, sr. creative director, copywriter, Leo Burnett; Kapil Bhimekar, creative director & art direction, Leo Burnett; Paurav Shah, sr. copywriter and dialogues, Leo Burnett; Smit Agrawal, Vaibhava Bhatnagar, creatives. Production Company Liwa Content.Driven Sagar Rege, exec producer; Aeyaz, DP; Shane Vessaoukar, exec producer; Neha Jaswani, production coordinator; Charbel Zgheib, production designer; Shoaib Ischtivak, Nikhil Soman, Talal Dakkak, postproduction; Remy Haddad, 1st AD. Editorial Cold Cutz Neda Zag, editor. Color LZRD Karim Mira, colorist. Soundtrack “Art of Silence” by Uniq featuring Onio
NHS England, M&C Saatchi UK, Director Tom Tagholm Team On PSA Highlighting The Overlooked Signs Of A Stroke
National Health Service (NHS) England has unveiled a multichannel campaign, “Act FAST,” to raise awareness of the individual signs of a stroke and get people to call 999 as soon as they suspect they may be experiencing any one symptom. The push, which is part of the ongoing “Help Us, Help You” campaign, was developed in partnership with M&C Saatchi UK.
The campaign depicts everyday situations where everything might seem relatively normal, but where there’s the sign of someone experiencing a stroke.
A key component of the campaign is this :30--directed by Tom Tagholm of Various Films--which sets up the idea that initially, a stroke might not seem like much, highlighting key symptoms: from struggling to use a paint roller, to not being able to smile when watching TV, to slurring your speech when reading a story to your grandchild. The PSA emphasizes that time is critical, ending with the line: “Face or arm or speech, at the first sign, it’s time to call 999.”
Jo Bacon, Group CEO, M&C Saatchi UK, said, “We want to ensure people take action on the first symptom, rather than waiting for more conclusive signs. To help them understand that even when everything seems normal, something serious might be happening.”
Matt Lee, executive creative director, M&C Saatchi UK, commented: “This is important work. We wanted to explore that precise moment when your world shifts, quietly yet powerfully, off its axis during a stroke. We highlight how a tiny external moment can actually be seismic—an extraordinary gear change, framed in a really ordinary way.”
Director Tagholm shared, “My Dad suffered a stroke a few years ago and was saved from the worst by acting quickly, and by the work of the NHS. So there’s... Read More