Hungry Man Director Bryan Buckley Falls Off Cliff For Conan O’Brien, TBS
CLIENT
TBS/Conan O’Brien
Rob Korb, sr. VP/creative director, TBS/TNT/TCM
PRODUCTIONHungry Man, bicoastal/international
Bryan Buckley, director
EDITORIALBig Sky, New York
Miky Wolf, editor
POST/EFFECTS
Big Sky Effects, New York
Ryan Sears, VFX supervisor/artist; Agnes Gunawan, artist.
MUSIC
Beacon Street Studios, Venice, Calif.
Andrew Feltenstein, John Nau, composers; Adrea Lavezzoli, producer.
SOUND DESIGN
Big Sky, New York
Miky Wolf, sound designer
AUDIO
Sound Lounge
Philip Loeb, mixer
THE WORKThis cinema spot opens with Conan O’Brien acknowledging that moviegoers must be ticked off at the sight of him in that they didn’t come to the theater to watch commercials, including any promo heralding his much anticipated talk show on TBS, which debuts in November.
But O’Brien will make it up to theater audiences by infusing this promo with thrilling, self-described “top notch entertainment.” As he approaches an automobile, he explains that he will drive this 1969 Dodge Dart off a cliff, plunging 900 feet into a canyon. But that’s just the beginning.
We then see that 80 pounds of explosives have been placed in the vehicle’s trunk. Crew members then pour gasoline, some 40 gallons, onto the Dodge.
The car’s interior is then filled with illegal fireworks and hundreds of pounds of popcorn kernels.
The camera next reveals off to the side the Hapsburg Chamber Orchestra, which performs a stirring score worthy of a thriller action/adventure theatrical motion picture.
A stuntman who looks reasonably like O’Brien makes his way to the automobile. O’Brien intercepts him, punches him a couple of times in the face followed by a swift kick to the groin area, and then throws him aside.
“I do my own stunts!” exclaims O’Brien.
He then gets in the driver’s seat and speeds off, letting out a maniacal laugh.
Sure enough, the car plummets off the cliff and upon impact releases a mega pyrotechnics show, replete with bursting fireworks and freshly popped popcorn. it’s a spectacle worthy of the TBS “Very Funny” tagline.
Directorial Duo Sausage Walks The Dog For Larger Than Life Yahoo Phones
CLIENTYahoo! Inc.
PRODUCTIONkaboom productions, San Francisco
sausage (a.k.a. John Benson and Ward Evans), directors/writers; Norman Bonney, DP; Lauren Schwartz, executive producer; Steven Sills, head of production; Lisa Tesone, producer.
EDITORIAL/GRAPHICS
Idle Hands, San Rafael, Calif.
Jon Francis, editor
POST
Spy Post, San Francisco
Chris Martin, colorist; Darren Orr, finishing artist
MUSIC LICENSING
APM Music & Music Orange
THE WORK
To showcase its latest mobile apps, Yahoo! is taking interactivity to a new level by installing giant phone kiosks in high-profile movie theaters. For this unique engagement, Yahoo! tapped kaboom productions’ directing duo sausage–John Benson and Ward Evans–in a dual capacity to write and helm content for the bigger-than-life phones.
Each phone has a 40-inch touch-screen that plays a series of videos featuring apps including Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Fantasy Football, and Yahoo! Search. Viewers can interact with the screen to toggle between videos and learn more about the apps. Creating content for this new media posed a number of challenges: In addition to being fun and eye-catching, each piece had to be telegraphic enough to work without audio, and be able to play in a 9:16 vertical format (a 16:9 wide-screen rotated 90º).
“We’ve been shooting for digital for years now, but this was a chance to try something new,” said sausage’s John Benson. “Creating for this aspect ratio was definitely a head-scratcher in a good way.”
In a vignette titled “Dogwalker,” a man takes his pooch for a stroll through the park, all the while followed closely by a floating TV news desk, at which are seated a male and a female anchor. As our dogwalker looks at his mobile phone, tapping into Yahoo! News, his attention then turns to a report of a record heat wave on the East Coast. The camera then reveals a weatherman pointing out specifics on a map, with the dog sniffing at his shoes.
Other sausage-created and directed vignettes include geared-up football players boarding a commuter bus as a passenger manages his fantasy team, another in which a series of waiter and chefs cater to a young woman who is searching for a place to eat, and one which shows a woman literally and figuratively connected to her friends as she walks through a mall into the parking lot and finally into her car.
Sausage has been on something of a roll lately, with a string of jobs for Yahoo! in 2010–but this was a rare case where the directing duo was also the creative team. This was an unusual but not unfamiliar twist to the process for sausage, as both Benson and Evans are former agency creatives.
“It’s both liberating and terrifying at the same time,” admitted Evans. “As the directors, there’s no blaming the creative when you were allowed to come up with it.”
Mekanism Finds Mechanism For Recycling Your Blues, Keeping Warm Via GAP
CLIENTGAP
AGENCY/PRODUCTION
Mekanism, bicoastal
Tommy Means, executive creative director; Tony Benna, director; Courtney Booker, director/editor/FX artist; John Behrens, DP; Jason Harris, executive producer; Amy Gatzert, Nick Read, producers.
MUSIC
Music from indie rock band Surfer Blood
THE WORKA woman sitting on a park bench notices that her jeans are frayed. In an instant they unravel and form a denim-like house that surrounds her head and upper torso., exposing her legs which wind up scampering her off to an as yet unknown destination.
Same for a man at an outdoor cafe whose torn jeans become a denim abode enclosed around him.
His legs soon get into perpetual motion and are starting to take him elsewhere.
Next a woman walking down the street bends over and splits the backside of her jeans. The pants then unravel to create yet another mini house made of denim. She too takes off for what are still parts unknown.
Suddenly there are assorted denim heads running about the city, including some who are peddling bicycles.
These denim folks appear in a hurry to get somewhere.
The answer to the question of where that somewhere is then gets revealed.
It turns out they’re all headed to a GAP store. But why, aside from the fact that they find themselves needing jeans to cover their legs?
A woman’s voiceover intervenes, “Did you know your torn and worn jeans can insulate a house?”
Her query provides context explaining why denim houses adorn so many people in town as they scurry over to the nearest GAP in order to help fill the gap for those desperately in need of home insulation.
The female voice encourages us to bring our worn denim to a GAP store as part of the Recycle Your Blues event running through most of October.
By doing so, you not only help keep people warm but also get a discount on a new pair of GAP jeans.–bringing together a good deed and commerce.
From October 6-20, GAP and Cotton Incorporated are inviting consumers to dig up their old denim–any old denim–for their second nationwide ‘Recycle Your Blues’ event.
Shoppers can recycle their denim at more than 1,000 GAP stores in the U.S. and Canada.
Those who donate their denim will receive 30 percent off new 1969 jeans purchases at the GAP.
To sweeten the deal, GAP’s Facebook and FourSquare fans can get an extra 10 percent off through GAP’s Facebook Fan Page or by checking in to GAP via FourSquare. This translates into a total discount of some 40 percent.
All denim collected will be given a “new life” by being converted into UltraTouch Natural Cotton Fiber Insulation,.
This insulation will then be donated to numerous communities in need.
Last March, GAP and Cotton Incorporated partnered for the first ever national denim drive and collected more than 270,000 pairs of jeans at more than 1,000 participating GAP stores.
The two week ‘Recycle Your Blues’ denim drive was record-breaking–shoppers’ donations matched the amount of denim previously collected over the four year history of the COTTON. BLUE TO GREEN® denim recycling program.
The donated denim served as insulation for 500 homes in under-served communities and for special projects, including Hurricane Katrina rebuilding efforts.
