Speechless Campaign: Speechless

Even the finest actors are vulnerable when working without a script - but beginning Thanksgiving Day (November 22), a staggering array of A-list Screen Actors Guild talent - including Sean Penn, Susan Sarandon, Jeff Garlin, Gary Marshall, and Harvey Keitel, to name a few - did just that as part of a "Speechless" campaign conceived by director/writer George Hickenlooper and writer Alan Sereboff. Driving home the importance of writers, the spots use various means to convey the actors' frustration in attempting to do their job without the proper tools. The ads are appearing exclusively on the Internet, the medium at the heart of the current WGA labor strike against the Alliance Of Motion Picture & Television Producers. Woody Allen, Charlize Therone, Philip Seymour Hoffman and others are slated to go before the cameras in the coming days.
Music Forever Owner/Composer Anthony Marinelli is providing original music, sound design, dialogue editing, and the final mix on the 20-plus spots. Given the absence of scripts or storyboards, these elements play a more critical role than usual.
Says Marinelli: "These are raw, mini-films with a screen-test-like quality, we're all shooting from the hip. The very nature of this campaign is that there is no script, so the music has to support the stories and pull them together without completely smoothing the rough edges.There is a new economic structure developing for all creative artists. It's nothing we could have planned for but it's something we all have to reconcile in order to survive.
"Obviously, we are looking forward to a resolution and at that time the campaign will be complete. In a way, though, the spots are a documentation of this moment in time, something we'll look back on for years to come."