Director Evan Silver’s new tongue-in-cheek short delves into ad agency struggles to create fresh content during the quarantine. Silver not only directed but also wrote and edited the film–titled COVID-19 Brainstorm–which takes us to a Zoom session in which a creative director and his colleagues grapple with commercialmaking ideas for a trusted client.
Silver shared, “I noticed most of the new commercials airing recently have either been recycled brand footage or self-shot on a cellphone or over Zoom. With film production shut down, this makes sense. Our options to create new content have been extremely limited which unfortunately puts us all in the same creative boat. The struggle to push the creative while our hands are virtually tied behind our backs is painful. I thought it would be interesting to find the humor in all this madness.”
Silver reached out to David Abed, a talented actor and comedy star, to play the lead creative director. Silver filled out the cast with friends from the worlds of comedy, acting, and advertising––playing themselves.
Silver, an alum of SHOOT’s 2007 New Directors Showcase, added, “I ‘filmed’ the short over Zoom (ouch) and I spent a couple of weeks editing at home, whenever my quarantined 3 year old wasn’t on my lap with his guitar. The work/home struggle is real.”
