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.
PRETTYBIRD filmmaker Salomon Ligthelm reteams with English-Nigerian artist Little Simz on the conceptual and visually rich music video “Flood.”
Featuring Obongjayar & Moonchild Sanelly, “Flood” is a hyper-stylized meditation on materialism and its role in shaping culture.
Staying in a performance-based visual space, Ligthelm captures Little Simz in dramatic black and white. True to his signature photographic style--which borders on the edge of fine-art-like--the framing and texture of ‘Flood’ plays quite minimalist while the performances are equally playful and extravagant.
Ligthelm previously directed Little Simz’s 2021 award-winning music video “Introvert.”
