Matthijs van Heijningen of MJZ directed this Verizon spot for mcgarrybowen which chronicles the rollercoaster ride of an adventure experienced by Edward Norton (Fight Club, American History X, The Incredible Hulk) in two days, underscoring the 48-hour battery life of the Droid Maxx smartphone.
The piece opens in a morgue where Norton emerges from his body drawer and flashes back to what’s transpired over the past 48 hours–from finding a wallet to crashing a plane, to being held captive by a survivalist, to uncovering a small fortune to nearly gambling away his life in a Connect Four game.
Credits
Client Verizon Wireless Droid Agency mcgarrybowen NY Cheryl Van Ooyen, executive creative director/writer; Tiffany Smith, creative director/writer; Jamie Massam, associate creative director/art director; Alex Flint, writer; Dante Piacenza, director of Verizon broadcast production; Leelee Groome, executive producer; Stephanie Diaz-Matos, executive music producer. Production MJZ Matthijs Van Hejiningen, director; Scott Howard, exec producer; Mark Hall, producer; Chris Soos, Alwin Kuchler, DPs. Editorial Rock Paper Scissors Adam Pertofsky, Neil Meiklejohn, editors; Carol Lynn Weaver, exec producer; Juliet Batter, producer. VFX The Mill Chris Knight, creative director; Jo Arghiris, exec producer; Dan Roberts, sr. producer; Jillian Lynes, producer; Feliz Urquiza, Blake Guest, Matt Bohnert, Ashraf Ghoniem, 3D artists; Chris Knight, Margolit Steiner, Daniel Thuresson, Chris Payne, Jake Maymudes, Tara DeMarco, 2D artists; Andy Wheater, matte painting; Byron Slaybaugh, motion graphics.
For World Cancer Day (Feb. 4), Gustave Roussy, a treatment center in France ranked number one in Europe and number four in the world in the fight against cancer, is once again speaking out through film. “Lucie” retraces the life of a young woman, from her birth, her joys, her encounters and her trials, in particular the illnesses she faced or may have faced (if not vaccinated) during her life but which did not kill her thanks to advances in science and medicine, including the discovery of her rare cancer at the age of 36.
Conceived by Publicis Conseil and directed by Jaco Van Dormael via production company Hamlet, “Lucie” takes the gamble of using almost exclusively scientific images to tell this story (scanners, MRIs, microscopes, 3D). It highlights the beauty of these images beyond their raw meaning, the poetry that can emerge from them to pay tribute to all the researchers, doctors and specialists who over the centuries have transformed what were once serious illnesses into benign ones, saving many lives in the process. Like most of us, Lucie lives her life without even thinking about all the times when science and medicine have enabled her to go on living.
“In a world where cancer affects one person in two and more and more young adults, we want to show that the disease is a stage in life from which the majority of sufferers are now recovering, thanks to scientific progress. Lucie’s story is the story of thousands of patients. This film makes Gustave Roussy, its doctors, researchers and professionals part of the history of major scientific advances,” said Professor Fabrice Barlesi, CEO of Gustave Roussy.
