Oscar® winning director Ron Howard and award-winning actress Glenn Close collaborate to raise awareness of mental illness in the new :30/:60 PSA “Say” for Bring Change 2 Mind. Created by New York ad agency the watsons, the spot was shot in New York’s Grand Central Station and was edited by Matthew Wood of the Whitehouse, Bicoastal/Chicago/London. Music was donated by Grammy® winning singer-songwriter John Mayer. The emotionally compelling PSA seeks to create better public awareness and understanding of the stigma surrounding mental illness.
“One in six adults has a mental illness,” says Maggie Monteith, Creative Director and Partner with the watsons. “That’s some 50 million people in the United States alone. Yet the reality is that mental illness is one of the last remaining diseases that people actually get blamed for having. We conceived this spot to take that rather startling statistic and present it in a tangible way. This is what one in six looks like. Glenn and her sister Jessie had the courage and credibility to introduce this reality into the national conversation. And then Ron took the concept and made it as beautiful as it is evocative. Matt and the team at Whitehouse were integral in telling a big story in a matter of seconds.”
“The core message is so useful,” notes director Howard. “A lot of people will find that it’s a relief to simply acknowledge that mental health issues are something that every family deals with. Yet it clearly remains stigmatized.”
“BringChange2Mind” opens on the Great Hall at Grand Central Station during rush hour. As the camera travels through the crowd we see a man and a woman both wearing white t-shirts. As the shot goes in tighter we realize hers says “mom” and his says “schizophrenia”. In the next scene, the camera singles out another couple, also wearing white shirts. We see that the man’s shirt says “post traumatic stress disorder” and the woman’s says “battle buddy.” The visual technique continues to build momentum as it reveals yet another couple also wearing white shirts. His says “bipolar” hers says “depression.”
The final dramatic reveal finds Glenn Close and her sister Jessie wearing the same white shirts. Jessie Close’s shirt says “bipolar” and Glenn Close’s says “sister”. The only two people with speaking roles in the PSA, Glenn Close reveals that in this country “One in six adults has a mental illness,” with her sister Jessie finishing the sentence, “And we face a stigma that can be as painful as the disease itself.” Their courageous revelation is followed by Glenn Close’s nephew Calen wearing a shirt that says “schizophrenia”, together with Glenn’s daughter Annie in a shirt that says “cousin” and Glenn’s niece/Jessie’s daughter wearing a shirt that says “sister”.
The final scene is a dramatic overhead shot of the Great Hall. We see there are a number of white shirts in the crowd. Suddenly all of them transform color, blending into the crowd as Close implores us to “Change a mind about mental illness, and you can change a life.”
The closing transition, seamlessly integrating those with mental illnesses, was executed by Kieran Walsh, creative director at Carbon VFX. The visual effects sequence required on-set supervision with director Ron Howard, and extensive compositing in Flame.
Of his role in the production, Whitehouse film editor Matthew Wood says “Initially, we wanted to build up the idea that this was a normal morning commute in Grand Central Station and then expose the white shirts as contrast to this,” adding “It’s very gratifying to work with such an extraordinary talent as Ron Howard in highlighting a relatively unknown statistic about mental illness.”
About BringChange2Mind.org
BringChange2Mind.org is a not-for-profit organization created by Glenn Close, the Child and Adolescent Bipolar Foundation (CABF), Fountain House, and Garen and Shari Staglin of IMHRO (International Mental Health Research Organization).
The idea of a national anti-stigma campaign was born of a partnership between Glenn Close and Fountain House, where Glenn volunteered out of an interest in mental illness due to the illnesses of her sister and nephew.
BringChange2Mind’s mission is twofold:
– provide people with misconceptions about mental illness quick and easy access to information that combats stigma
– provide people with mental illness, and those who know them, quick and easy access to information and support
Credits:
Client: BringChange2Mind.org
Title: “Say” :30/:60
Airdate: October 21, 2009
Agency: the watsons, NY
CD: Maggie Monteith, Paul Orefice
Account Director: Eric Sutcliffe
Agency Senior Producer: Lorraine Kraus
Production Company: @radical Media, NY, NY
Director: Ron Howard
DP: Sal Totino
Executive Producer: Frank Scherma
Editorial Company: the Whitehouse, Bicoastal/Chicago/London
Editor: Matthew Wood
Assistant Editor: John Luisi
Editorial Producer: Melanie Klein
VFX: Carbon VFX, NY
Designer: Kieran Walsh
VFX Executive Producer: Frank Devlin
Music: John Mayer, “Say”
About the watsons
the watsons (itsthewatsons.com), founded in July 2003, is a New York-based creative boutique whose expertise is creating lasting relationships between great brands and the audiences they benefit. Founded by four “corner-office” ad execs, the watsons is a small, agile agency that, in just six short years, has experienced triple-digit growth and received more than a dozen major industry awards, including a 2006 Emmy nomination. the watsons also have an office in Chicago.
About the Whitehouse
The Whitehouse is a film editing company.
It opened in 1990, in a little white house in Soho, London. The company had three editors, some rented equipment and a sofa bed from Ikea that wouldn’t fold out. They worked hard, won some awards and had a laugh. Life was good. Life was simple. Then some smarty pants invented a computer to edit film on. They bought one, because everyone else had one and they didn’t want to be left out.
Nineteen years later, the Whitehouse has provided the editing on Oscar winning movies, award-winning commercials, Emmy-winning TV shows, documentaries and music videos.
The Whitehouse now has offices in London, New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. Many people have come and gone over the years. Some have come, gone and come again. But one thing has remained constant.
The Whitehouse cuts film.
About Carbon VFX
Carbon is an essential element in all living things. The New York design and VFX studio of the same name holds creativity as essential – a key building block for every project. Recently launched by award-winning Creative Director Kieran Walsh and Executive Producer Frank Devlin in partnership with the Whitehouse, Carbon is an integrated creative arm specializing in motion graphics, design and visual effects, bringing the partners’ 20+ years at the top tier of the industry to every visual challenge.
