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Seen and noted
New TV/Cinema work from Cummins & Partners Melbourne The Horror genre is the method of choice ... this one's called "Chainsaw Massacre". To view the spot click .... HERE Following from the print we featured last week Here's the TV component of the new axe campaign from BBH London. and a few words from the creatives: "A purely innocent product demo, shot with the production values and style we've come to expect from high end fashion/perfume advertising." To view the spot click .... HERE Another great Friskies spot from DDB Paris We featured one of these on the main page a couple of weeks ago, but this one is WELL worth a look. To view the spot click .... HERE A closer look at recent work from South Africa Apart from the 2 (two!) South African spots featured on the main page, we've had loads of great work from this region in the last couple of weeks, so we thought it'd be worth a closer look. Some great work from production company Nice People Rewind, and firstly a bit of background from them: Being new to the world of actually making TV ads at the time, we decided we needed a script that played to our strengths and brought across a strong message. So we grabbed as many scripts from as many great minds as we could. Richard, having worked with Julian and Ben at JWT, Bangkok also brought some of their gems back to sunny Cape Town. And thus we came across the Beat script. This was to be our first showcase of the level and style of work we would like to produce. We then needed a client, time and cash. Client came in the form of the Heart Foundation of South Africa, who were extremely happy for us to be shooting a free TV ad for them. The production schedule and delivery times happened to co-incide with the Vuka awards (a South African PSA TV competition) aimed at charities and NGOs who wouldnt normally get airtime on televesion. We then had to beg and borrow from all our connections in Cape Town to produce the ad. But after showing the beautifully crafted story-board (ala Richard) we were given the access to all those things one only dreams of when starting a carreer in this game. Lights, camera, crew all came in close to gratis. Post-Production and sound were also given totally free. Steadicam too. We were set! To view the spot click .... HERE  From Lowe Bull and productio company Humanoid, an unusual spot called "Free Dom" To view the spot click .... HERE  From Velocity Films and TBWA/HUNT/LASCARIS (again), here's a nicely executed spot for Liberty Life. To view the spot click .... HERE  A new 2 minute Castle lager spot from Ogilvy Johannesburg & Egg Films: To view the spot click .... HERE Guest comments for featured Hubba Bubba spot "Shadows"
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April 20, 2006 05:45 (Edited: February 17, 2023 05:19)
 A bit of background from Ant&Alex, DDB Sydney ... creatives on the featured "shadows" spot for Hubba Bubba. Every bubble gum ad shows a massive bubble in some way. We wanted to do something different, so we cast a kid who could blow bubbles twenty five feet high, but he called in sick on the day. Thankfully the director Ben West has huge amounts of experience with world-renowned effects house Animal Logic, so he was able to recreate the bubble shadows we needed in post. He painstakingly recreated every scene in wire frame 3D, so that he could cast realistic shadows for every object. Because if the shadows looked wrong the whole thing would have fallen apart. Obviously, it all worked out great. As weve ended up with a spot that takes you on a journey you dont expect. Hurrah! Guest comments for featured literacy spot "Hills"
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April 20, 2006 05:42 (Edited: February 17, 2023 05:19)
 A few words abut the South African literacy spot from Andre Vrdoljak, art director, Lowe Bull Johannesburg. This was the kind of ad where you had to basically do it up just to present it. A script and story board just wouldn't sell it. So we drew it all up on a big board, cued the music and shot the ad with a small hand-held digi cam in our office. This turned out to be so effective that when it came to producing it we just mimicked our original ad and added the animation. Prodigy to sponsor the bestads awards night 2006
FROM BESTADSONTV
April 20, 2006 01:43 (Edited: February 17, 2023 05:19)
 It's official ... Prodigy Films will sponsor this year's bestads awards night on May 31st. More details about the actual night coming soon. In the meantime, take a look at excerpts from the Prodigy reel: click .... HERE 
Guest comments for featured spot "March of the Penguins"
GUEST COMMENTS
April 13, 2006 11:16 (Edited: February 17, 2023 05:19)
 Some background from the director, Kevin Donovan. "Oddly, perhaps pathetically, I am one of very few directors who had experience directing penguins- twice even. And both times in South Africa. And I had the worlds best fake penguin maker, Ron Stefanuick, willing to travel half way around the world to help. I am sorry, Ron, that we not only blew the arm off your Emporer Penguin, but also caught him on fire in the Kill Bill-ish blood- spewing scene. We had amazing support from everyone in Africa. We had a minimal crew and everyone was doing at least 3 jobs. I began in wardrobe so that was no problem, but script supervision, or lack there of, was a new thing that I didn't learn very well. We did one day at Tina the Penguin Lady's house then two days in the frozen tundra averaging about forty set ups per day. Two takes of anything was a luxury. 'Not in focus? Fine, it's an art piece.' The explosions were so big that our buffed up Weapons Officer opted out of the last few takes. No one was hurt... badly... A little sun stroke as Ron Stefanuick refused to puppeteer underground fearing that 'the little people were going to attack.' The people at The Big Picture Co. pulled all their favors and worked tirelessly to pull off a job that often seemed insane. And, no penguins were hurt in the filming, although Tina turned her head as Trevor Brown, our fabulous D.P., who somehow made sense of my anxious ramblings, ran mercilessly at a herd of her little birds with a menacing camera. It was one of those projects that we were shooting so fast that I was never really sure what we had. And when Charly at Homestead starting patching it together we had a lot of areas where it looked less like a horde of birds and more like a gaggle. Charly was really amazing in weaving together the footage where many holes existed. Then came the really hard part: making the unruly birds seem like they were an organized army. The guys at SUSPECT, Tim and Rob and the whole crew made this ugly duckling their new little pet. Much of what they did was simply creating birds that never exsited- and miraculously meshing them into the shots where real and animatronic birds already sat. When you have a really good idea like Wes and Mitch and Regina at McKinney had, everyone from the director/wardrobe stylist down to Ron's 12 year old daughter who spun penguin heads, becomes much more vested in the result. My producer, Tara Handley worked for more than a month on this albatross with no pay. You just can't buy that kind of commitment; which is good, because we spent all the money buying fake blood, explosive fuel and Windhoek Lager." Outdoor / ambient work with a twist Here's a very interesting one-off treatment from Saatchis London for Multiple Sclerosis Awareness Week From the creatives: Multiple Sclerosis is a crippling disease that interferes with messages between the brain and the body, causing body parts to suddenly shut down without any warning. Here we used a malfunctioning cinema curtain to get the message across. The commercial is the first of the ad break before the movie. The lights dim and the curtain begins to open. It suddenly stops halfway. A title appears, You never know what will shut down next. This fades and is replaced by the MS society logo, web address and MS awareness week 10th 17th April 2005 To view this work .... HERE and a malfunctioning scrolling poster! To view this work .... HERE New work for the Tribeca Film Festival O&M New York & Hungry Man team up to follow last years Robert De Niro spot. ... and do a very good job of it! To view the spot click .... HERE  Clever little advert this. From DDB London & RSA director Brett Foraker. To view the spot click .... HERE The other spot for the FULL FRAME DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL The Thin Blue Line ... the musical. This is the sister spot to "March of the Penguins", featured on the "latest ads" page this week. To view the spot click .... HERE Kiwi's are taking it to the world New work from MTC & Robbers Dog, for the Kiwibank. With a creative departmment of five (5), and a TV department of one (that's 1), MTC keep turning out good work. To view the spot click .... HERE "New Canadians" learn English from "The Score" sports channel. new from Leo Burnett Canada & production company Brown Entertainment. ... and a unique presenter style! To view the spot click .... HERE Guest comments for featured Playstation2 spot "rooftop"
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April 13, 2006 07:14 (Edited: February 17, 2023 05:19)
 A few words about the featured ad "Rooftop" from the creatives, Michael Burke & Steve Williams, TBWA London. The brief was to launch the latest title and expand the Singstar audience. Everyone has some bit of rock star inside them and karaoke is a way of living that dream, even for a few minutes. We wanted to dramatise this by taking it a little bit further, so we had two blokes stage their own impromptu performance on a roof overlooking a busy street. Ron Scalpello at Rogue auditioned to be one of the singers, but we turned him down. Dejected, he thankfully still agreed to direct the ad. Any resemblance to The Beatles gig on the roof of the Apple building or U2s shindig on a roof in LA is entirely coincidental. The new Glue Society Arthritis spot. THE GLUE SOCIETY CREATES SCARY COMMUNITY SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT CAMPAIGN FOR ARTHRITIS AUSTRALIA To view the spot click .... HERE ... and here's what we posted about this a week or so ago: For Arthritis Week this year (Sunday April 2 - 9) Arthritis Australia has opted to avoid the traditional approach to Community Service Announcements that use celebrities or other sympathy grabbing conventions in favour of a decidedly more frightening approach. Says Ainslie Cahill, CEO of Arthritis Australia: The objective of our campaign this year is to snap people out of inaction - and encourage people who have arthritis to optimize their general wellbeing and health into the future by seeing their doctor and contacting us for information and advice. To achieve this aim, they approached The Glue Society for a creative solution which would, like much of their work, create immediate public notoriety and attention. Rather unexpectedly, they discovered that Jonathan Kneebone, founder of The Glue Society, was himself hospitalised with rheumatoid arthritis for a year at the age of five and as a result it became a particularly pertinent project for both him and the other writers and directors on the project from Glue Society, Matt Devine and Luke Crethar. Jonathan Kneebone says: Arthritis can be profound in its impact on many people young and old. I have seen how it debilitates and slowly destroys someones liveliness. And because of my own experiences as a child with this disease, this project took on a particularly personal edge. We were able to use my own insights to create what we feel is one of the most provocative commercials weve ever written or directed. But we have done this in the knowledge that it is being provocative for all the right reasons. Our creative idea is very much in tune with the way arthritis affects people. The actual content of the commercial is being kept under wraps in order that it has a very real impact when people do see it on air. But suffice to say, it is designed to scare people into action and shows a typically ambivalent middle aged man being forced to consider the impact arthritis is having on his and his partners - life. In order to pull off what was a very ambitious idea required a production team of the highest quality and we were thrilled that so many wonderfully talented people agreed to donate much of their time to this particular project. As a result I feel it is one of our most compelling and effective pieces of work to date. Kneebone added. . Guest comments for featured spot "Go Wild!"
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April 06, 2006 08:30 (Edited: February 17, 2023 05:19)
 Go Wild! A few notes by Stephane Allender, VFX Supervisor/Inferno Artist, Framestore CFC. Rexona was a very ambitious project indeed, which is not to say that it wasnt fun to make. In fact, the whole project had a slight air of making a student film for us, such was the latitude for creative and input given us by Noam Murro, the director, and Lowe London, the agency. We started with a three-day shoot in funky Buenos Aires for the background plates. Then there was the four-day blue screen shoot at Universal Studios in LA for the live action animals. We then had to populate a complete empty 60 second edit with blue-screen and CG animals. I should add that the blue screens provided by DOP Toby Irwin were perfect every time, which made our job so much easier. It took us 5 months to complete the job: 25 people, 18 workstations, 1 Inferno, 3 Shakes, up to 800 processors from our render farm, 1 trip to the zoo in a van (for references), 840 coffees, 1512 teas, 26 litres of sweat. All very much worth it! As I said, the trust we experienced from Noam and Lowe London contributed greatly to the success of the effects - thanks again to them for that fabulous cooperation.  Good new Coca-Cola work from W+K & director Dante Ariola. (the quality's not great on this one ... if we get a better file we'll replace it ASAP.) To view the spot click .... HERE "Ode to testosterone" - from Kessels Kramer, Amsterdam Men just have to be men in this anonymous content @ Independent production. Must be one hell of a beer. To view the spot click .... HERE New from George Patterson Y&R & Independent Films (Sydney)New Peugeot work from BETC EuroRSCG, Paris Directing duo Zac & Dan from Stink achieve a stylish look for the new BBC spot. To view the spot click .... HERE We don't get much work from Japan, but ....inside the head of an animation company head .. huh? A chat with Chris OReilly - joint MD/co-founder of Nexus Productions. bestads: You started in London & have since opened in Paris. Is this the road the world domination? Whats the history of nexus & where do you see it going? Chris OReilly: Charlotte Bavasso and I started Nexus eight years ago. Originally we were a division of a Japanese company, but then we bought them out and separated off. Opening in Paris was a natural evolution for us. Charlotte is French and weve always had French directors on our reel. The talent in France is excellent and there are interesting projects coming from there too. Not sure about the road to world domination! Were enjoying the winding back routes. bestads: Any plans to move into non-animated areas? Chris OReilly: Our company plan was to focus on the new generation of filmmakers and artists who had embraced digital film making techniques, with a strong focus on animation. However we always had broader filmmaking interests. Live-action and animation hybrid work has been a massive part of our repertoire, and quite a lot of live-action only work too. Right now were involved in three totally live-action projects. Ultimately our interest is in talent not techniques. bestads: Weve featured 8 Nexus spots on bestads. Thats got to be a record for an animation company for our site. Any interesting work in the pipeline (that youd be allowed tell us about)? Chris OReilly: Weve got quite a few projects going through that Im excited about. Hopefully some will surprise and delight enough to make it on again! bestads: So Grrr is being submitted to the Guinness book of records! Whats the thinking there? Chris OReilly: Weve been told this... It has won a lot of awards - pretty much everything it entered. Its been at a disadvantage being animated as it cant win quite so many craft awards (editing, art direction, cinematography etc) so I dont know whether it will get that honour. bestads: Smith & Foulkes, Smith & Foulkes, Smith & Foulkes ... Do the other directors get a bit peeved at all of the attention these guys have been getting? Chris OReilly: They have been pretty hard to avoid of late, but the other directors here all hold their own against them pretty well! I think we have a diverse roster, and I think the directors all have similarly diverse ambitions. bestads: Maybe nows a good time to mention the feature film title sequences youve done. I remember sitting in the cinema being mightily impressed by these! Chris OReilly: These have been great fun projects to work on. Feature titles get a global exposure that commercials rarely get. Kuntzel + Deygass work for Catch Me If You Can was even parodied on The Simpsons. Now that is an accolade Grrr! never had! bestads: Where do you see animation ( & advertising for that matter!) heading from here? Chris OReilly: Were in a time of exciting change. I think its important for companies like ours to be flexible and recognise which strengths are universal and enduring. Where ever there is excellent design with strong storytelling, we want to be there. Thats what Im backing for the future. bestads: Any tips for creatives ... if theyre thinking about writing for an animated treatment? Chris OReilly: I think its always good when a creative team get the animation company in early to develop the project. With animation you have to create a whole coherent universe and working with the directors who understand their techniques and styles inside out, can make the script work better. Almost all our good work comes from these co-operative trusting relationships. (see all of the work at www.nexusproductions.com) Guest comments for featured spot "Big Win"
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April 06, 2006 04:26 (Edited: February 17, 2023 05:19)
 A few words from Peter Souter, Graham Storey and Phil Cockeral, AMV BBDO Lodon, creators on the National Lottery "Big Win" advert. A tip for all lazy but ambitious creatives. Scribble out a half decent script and then e-mail it to Mark Craste at Studio AKA in London. Leave him alone for five months while he spins layer after layer of beautiful drawings onto a bank of thirty computers, broadcast the results and then claim all the credit. Guest comments for featured spot "Organ transport"
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April 06, 2006 04:15 (Edited: February 17, 2023 05:19)
 A few words from the Florian Meimberg, CD Grey Düsseldorf, & one of the directing duo on the "Organ Transport" spot. I directed the ad together with my copywriting partner Torsten. We work as a creative director team for grey worldwide in Düsseldorf. A couple of years ago, we also started directing some of the commercials we create for the agency. That's also what we did with the Toppits ad. One night of shooting and one day of post production, and we were done! As directors, we call ourselves FLOTO. Greetings from germany! FLOTO Guest comments for the feature spot "Reconstruction"
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April 06, 2006 04:08 (Edited: February 17, 2023 05:19)
 Some background to this week's featured spot "reconstruction" from Nigel Dawson, CD, Grey Melbourne. Sgt Peter Bellion has attended over 1000 fatal and serious crashes. This was the first time he had watched the crash happen. Nobody was hurt, though director Bruce Hunts brain was severely knocked about while trying to come to grips with filming a slow motion car hitting a pedestrian in reverse at 32 km/h while in the same frame Peter Bellion was walking forwards in real time. And it all looked so simple on paper. We wanted to revisit the Slo-Mo spot of two years ago, in which a crash expert compared cars travelling at two different speeds, but his time showing the trauma suffered by an innocent pedestrian. Three days on a quiet street in Williamstown turned into four when the weather Gods turned on such a blow that an army of grips couldnt stabilise the massive green screen. Five cameras covered the crash, with dummy, stuntie and a very game young actress. After a weekend of assembling, the chosen footage was fed into a motion control camera on the Monday to incorporate the walking policeman. Then things got really difficult. We wanted a spot that was so seamless that nobody could see where the dummy stopped and the live actress began. FIN spent two weeks working on Drew Thompsons edit, boldly CGIing into places theyd never CGIed before. It took Richard Lambert a week working to complete one shot of the girl falling back (or was it forward?) from the bonnet of the car. The reaction from the average punter has been outstanding. Compelling is the most commonly used descriptor and many have said that its the best of the 112 TAC ads made by Grey thus far. Guest comments for featured LAFA spots from Sweden.
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April 06, 2006 04:03 (Edited: February 17, 2023 05:19)
 Some background from ESTER Stockholm ... the creators of the LAFA condom spots. About The Trilogy The Trilogy is the third film in the very successful campaign "Condom. Still the easiest way to avoid anxiety.", which earlier have won Swedens highest advertising awards the Golden Egg and 100-wattaren. Today young people are less afraid of getting sexually transmitted diseases. According to that fact, that young people don´t care much if they get infected or not, we decided to focus on the hard and "anxiety causing" things that occour surrounding an infection. We want young people to consider the consequnces of the disease rather than the disease itself, and with this tactic get the young people to use condoms. The campaign illustrates in a humorous way the dangers of unsafe sex. The Trilogy is the third film in an long-term campaign with two earlier films made. All three films communicate at the same theme and with the same pay-off "Condom. Still the easiest way to avoid anxiety." The idéa and pay off permeates all communication. The earlier films showed how unpleasant and "anxiety causing" it can be, to be forced to call up all your former sex partners, telling them that you have been infected with an sexually transmitted disease. In the Trilogy we want to illustrate that there's always someone else's version of the same occurrence and that things never are as they seem. Things are connected in the most unpleasant and unexpected ways, situations that are guaranteed to cause you anxiety. The idea to illustrate one and the same story from different persons point of view we got from the film Pulp Fiction and it was interesting to test if it could work as a commercial. It was exciting to brake up the stories in time so the first film starts where the last film ends. The Trilogy format became a natural result of these ideas. In addition to that, it felt like a new way to make a film in three parts - in one and the same commercial break. art director seeking senior writer
PEOPLE
April 05, 2006 22:03 (Edited: February 17, 2023 05:19)
 We don't often run employment ads, but this one's interesting. To view .... HERE make sure you click on "Click here for the campaign file" when you get there - the single page jpeg is too small to read. Guest comments for featured spot "Hands" A few words from Leon Sverdlin, Creative Director, Mark BBDO, Czech Republic, and copywriter on this spot. Finding a pair of hands that had the looks as well as the acting ability wasnt easy. The winning hands belong to an actress in a puppet theatre. After spending all day and most of the night walking the streets, she almost regretted getting the role New spec spot from Group 101 & A BAND APART Prepare for the biting taste of Altoids! Production company A Band Apart has put together this spec spot with LA agency Group 101. To view the spot click .... HERE  There's been a LOT of great work coming out of France lately ... & here's a new one from DDB Paris. To view the spot click .... HERE  One of the new Pepsi Max spots from CLM BBDO, Paris, with the fimiliar line "don't worry ... there's no sugar". To view the spot click .... HERE And from Canadian agency bleublancrouge This new Burger King work from blueblancrouge isn't exactly mainstream corporate burgers. Once again proving you don't have to have a million dollar budget to get on bestads. To view the spot click .... HERE Serious SFX from Saatchis Sydney The new Toyota Yaris spot out of Saatchi & Saatchi Sydney gives the SFX departments (pics & sound) a bit of a workout. To view the spot click .... HERE and from Egg Films & Ogilvy JohannesburgPublicis Mojo NZ & Curios Film. A new feelgood Glassons spot for the Breast Cancer Research Trust ... from Curious Film & Publicis Mojo New Zealand To view the spot click .... HERE « First « Previous Next » Last » 1415 of 1425 |
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