Another 48hrs

Making a short film can be quite difficult. Problems can occur almost anywhere. Actors, equipment, lighting, weather, film the list is potentially endless. Making a short film in 48 hours, and doing it well, could be described as nothing short of a miracle. But there are, it seems, a queue of people crazy enough to attempt such a feat and a magical few who can skilfully pull off such a fast turnaround off in fine style.
Smoke and Mirrors London recently held their 3rd annual 48hr film festival, and we were there to see the winners unveiled…

A poke in the eye to short film makers who have spent months of toil on theirs, this years 48hr film submissions were of the highest possible calibre. Each year Smoke and Mirrors provide a theme which filmmakers must use as the thread for the film. Entrants have 48 hours to write, shoot and edit the film which must amount to no longer than 5 minutes. The winners are provided with all they could possibly need to create a short, including lights, camera, stock, processing and post.

Make a film, get one free. It’s that simple.

This years judges were also film makers and industry shakers of high calibre and included:

Andy Jex – Mother
Bil Bungay – BMB
Brad Woodus – VCCP
Claire Cook – BBC
Miles Wilkes – Park Village
Danny Brooke Taylor – MCBD
Kai Hsiung – RSA
Johnnie Frankel – Rattling Stick

But anyway… WHO WON!? WHERE CAN WE SEE IT!?!

This years well deserved winner was 'i stood up' by Lucy Tcherniak and James Willis form Partizan. Runners up included Jamie Chung form Home Corp with ‘Happy go Lucky’ and Wayne Yip from Addiction with ‘Be Lucky’.

We will be hosting 6 of the best in the next issue of The Reel (obviously), but if you can’t wait until then you can see the three victors here:

http://www.smoke-mirrors.com/smweb/48hours/

With such high quality and variety created in such a short period of time, we can't wait until next years competition!!

The Reel would like to extend some praise to all involved!
Well done!

Newsreel 31/10/08

Got news? We want it!!! Send all your tittle-tattle to editor@thereel.net and we'll do our darndest to feature it here.

Whitey is a Hungry Man

D.C. native Whitey (of Jackass fame) is the latest helmer to be added to Hungry Man’s exceptional roster. After seeing his latest YouTube stunt, the production company knew they had to get a hold of the guy behind Kobe Bryant's mammoth leap of faith. The video in which Kobe jumps over a moving Astin Martin, received over 1 million views and flooded inboxes of coworkers in virtually every global work place. Although the stunt was nothing like Kobe had ever attempted before, it was just a day on the job for the former MTV Jackass writer & director.

Whitey’s drive to become a director stemmed from his frustration at the lack of cool skate & snowboard videos, leading him to establish his own company Kingpin Productions & producing around 17 films to date with them. Immersed in the Boarding/Skating culture, Whitey became the photo editor at Blunt Magazine (later picked up by Big Brother), which helped him gain recognition by the Jackass crew. With the success of Jackass came the opportunities to concept and write campaigns for Nike, Nike Plus, Zune and EA with teams from Wieden + Kennedy, 72andSunny & Cutwater.

Check out his showreel on the Hungry Man website

Tonge reaches a Crossroads

Comedy director Ben Tonge has just been added to Crossroad’s roster. Working extensively in Manchester for the last 5 years through Chief (who still represent him in the city), Ben has entered Crossroads for representation in London and eventually through the Crossroads network in the States. His worked has just secured his first London based job with AMV. With an in-camera style coupled with his flair for humour makes his work both accessible and captivating. That and the fact that he is a very funny and inspiring Guy will no doubt aid him greatly. Ben also has worked on shorts and comedy pilots and is currently working on a pilot for E4. Check it - http://www.crossroadsfilms.co.uk/bentonge

23rd London International Awards

November 10th – put it in your diary!! The 23rd London International Awards is taking place at the freshly done-up Hippodrome in Leicester Square. With a promise ‘to recognise and honour exceptional creative work in Advertising, Design, and Digital Media and those who have created them’ who could ask for more! Grab a ticket from the official site - http://www.liaawards.com/

Halloween Fun

Yep, as a special treat on All Hallows’ Eve, here’s a clip of a world-record beating 881 people dancing to Thriller in Austin Texas – enjoy.

...and another of a man performing an acapella rendition of the same song. 64 tracks - one voicebox - 2.5 months work. Amazing.

Reel Opinion Special: Sam Bonwick

A special extra Reel Opinion for you good folk this week, as soon to be departing Reel Deputy Editor (and collator of the regular feature) Sam Bonwick talks through the top five ads of his time with us. After seeing the thousands of ads, shorts and promos that flow through Reel Towers on a regular basis, the man Bonners has let his polite demeanour falter and his opinions rise to the fore in this intriguing insight into just what makes a Dept Ed tick. [JM]

Sam Bonwick
[Former] Deputy Editor
The Reel, London

When I took the job at The Reel, having left the topsy-turvy world of TV production, my dear old dad said, 'I can't stand watching adverts on the telly, why the hell do you want to do that for a living?!' I remember being slightly stumped with that rather simple question, eventually mumbling something like, 'Because I can appreciate them as short creative films'. Dad scoffed and I think he still tells people that I work in TV.

Nevertheless, I have undoubtedly been given plenty of enjoyment from some fantastic adverts, shorts and promos from the minds of some fantastically creative people. I have eschewed 'the most famous drumming simian since Mickey Dolenz' [Jamie Madge describing Cadbury's 'Gorilla', The Reel, 2007], and other obvious choices that even my ad-hating old man tolerates, and tried to look a little deeper for some of the best ads of the past year or so. Enjoy.

Chupa Chups - 'Girlfriend'

Agency: BBH, Singapore

Production: Soft Citizen, Toronto

Director: The Perlorian Brothers

Creative team turned directing duo Ian Letts and Michael Gelfand aka The Perlorian Brothers do funny well. Here they have a new star on their hands and they direct him with aplomb. Chuck had better be big. He better be bigger than Burt Bacharach...or at least Flat Eric. When I first watched this ad I almost choked on my Kellogg's Special K Oats & Honey...and the next day I had a lollipop for breakfast.

13 Eme Rue - 'Gali the Alligator'

Agency: BETC Euro RSCG, Paris

Production: Big Productions, Paris

Director: Terri Timely

Before Chuck sucked his way into my life, there was another cuddly character that found his way onto The Reel and into all our hearts. To use the words of the expertly parodied song-for-kids that Barney wouldn't touch with a barge pole, 'Here comes Gali the Alligator, he's a puppet decimator'. The simple concept of this ad is the Carlsberg-esque idea that 13Eme Rue (a French crime channel) don't do kids TV but if they did it would be bloody good. Who wouldn't laugh with glee when a marauding man in an alligator suit rips off the head and pulls out the intestines of some cutesy woodland creature puppets?! A sane and compassionate person, you say? Oh, right. OK.

Diesel - 'SFW XXX'

Agency: The Viral Factory, London

Production: The Viral Factory, London

Director: The Viral Factory

So, they were the puppets; now comes the porn. I'm not really sure if I'm giving the best impression of myself here.

This one is fresh. So fresh, it's on the front cover of our October international issue [it's not even out yet so there's a sneak preview for you]. An acquantance of one of the Reel team forwarded this onto us without any branding, before we even knew what it was; we just knew it was funny and forwarded it onto all our friends - proof, if proof be needed, that The Viral Factory know what they're doing. When we realised it was for Diesel we were all a bit incredulous but applauded the cahoonas of all involved...especially the man with the Skittles.

The Natural Confectionery Company - 'Bring on the Trumpets'

Agency: Fallon, London

Production: MJZ, London

Director: Tom Kuntz

This ad isn't that funny; after a while it's a bit annoying, but I loved the simplicity of the idea and its excution. If you google 'Bring on the Trumpets' the first thing that comes up is a sponsored link to the Natural Confectionery Co's website. It comes from Fallon. They've thought about it. They've even got Matt 'Dr Sanchez' Berry to do the voice so you know they've thought about it. What kid could resist replying to a sensible question from an adult with 'Bring on the Trumpets' over and over again. The only way to shut them up is to stuff a guilt-free natural sweet into their gob...or hit them. I hope you're proud of yourselves Fallon.

Monster - 'Stork'

Agency: BBDO, New York

Production: Rattling Stick

Director: Daniel Kleinman

If only to prove that I'm not a complete child, I've included this epic and genuinely touching spot for the unlikely client of Monster.com. Rattling Stick rarely produce anything bad and Danny Kleinman has been on fire recently so the omens were good. Part of an inspired campaign for Monster earlier this year, which wheeled out work from uber director after uber director, it still pulls at the heart strings now. It's probably even, deep down, partly responsible for me heading to Australia! [Chris and Jamie have asked me to point out that The Reel office bears no resemblence to the office environment depicted in this ad].

NewsReel 23/10/08

From now on please send all press releases and news to editor@thereel.net. Sam@thereel.net has left the building.

Emma connects to the Mainframe
Motion graphics, animation and visual effects specialist Mainframe has appointed Emma Phillips as a new full-time producer. Emma has had stints at HHCL, where she was post production facility manager, at ITV Yorkshire and London production agency Minimart. She will be settling into the company’s new Farringdon HQ from 3rd November and it seems she’ll be busy from the off, as MD Adam Jenns explains, ‘…We’re being kept very busy with work for our long term broadcast clients like Virgin Media, Nickleodeon and MTV as well as some big new commercials projects through Hanrahan and Stink. Basically, we’re in urgent need of an extra pair of hands!’

Final notice of 2008 YGAward deadline
If you’d like to enter the 2008 YGAward, you’ve only got a week. Click here to get ‘em in.

Meribel 2008
Nearly 1100 delegates are expected to attend the 8th Meribel Festival on 12 – 17 December. The Film Cristal Jury was announced last week and here they are:

Presidents

Rober T Senior , CEO Fallon and Grégoire Champetier, Managing Director for Marketing, Communication and Development & Senior Vice-President for Brand Business Development, McDonald’s France and Southern Europe

Representing agencies :

Olivier Altmann, Co President & Executive Creative Director, Chairman of the Worldwide Creative Board, Publicis WW.

Xavier Beauregard, Vice President & Creative Director, Draft FCB Paris

Marco Cremona, Executive Creative Director, McCann Italie

Guillaume De Bary, Producer, Irene

Rene Hanke, Creative Director, JWT Dusseldorf

Michael Imberowicz, Creative Director, Young & Rubicam Brands Pologne

Xavier Mendiola, Co-Managing Director, DDB Paris

Olivier Moulierac, Creative Director, EURO RSCG C&O

Representing clients / advertisers:

Michael Aidan, Marketing Vice President in Charge of Mineral Waters, Danone Eaux, France

David Dargaud, Head of Communication, Audi France

Xavier de Naw, Head of Art Direction, Capitol Music / EMI France

Philip Rumbol, Marketing Manager, Cadbury UK

Katarzyna Szegidewicz, Marketing Director, CANAL+ POLOGNE

Reel Opinion: Rob van Vijfeijken

Rob van Vijfeijken is in the spotlight for this month's Reel Opinion. We gave the Creative Director at BSUR in Amsterdam five spots that caught our attention over the past month. Here's what he had to say:

Rob van Vijfeijken
Creative Director
BSUR Agency, Amsterdam

Samsung Electronics - 'Unboxed'

Agency: The Viral Factory, London

Production: The Viral Factory, London

Directors: Ben Wheatley and Jake Lunt

Ok, it's a viral! Funny, but it's got nothing to do with the brand Samsung I know so far.

A pile of 'hip' nonsense for a boring international brand that is always 'nearly' a real cool brand. They're all over the place - here and there - nice loose ideas are being ventilated but there's no coherence.

Samsung is throwing away a fortune without really building one strong iconic brand.

They were our client eight years ago, and they are more than welcome to have a good conversation and a cup of coffee with lots of cake in Amsterdam!

Levis 501 Jeans - 'Secrets & Lies'

Agency: BBH, London

Production: Sonny, London

Director: Jeff Labbe

Tasty broad: good face, great eyes, gorgeous body. The guy is not half bad. Good excuses, good lies, I know the story ;-)

But the jeans don't convey that feeling - they just happen to be there - so any jeans will do?!

Jeans are fashion - lifestyle. With this commercial this brand doesn't kick ass, Diesel and G-star do.

Come on Levis! They used to be a true icon...now they're just another brand! And the music is from somewhere before World War II...so is the brand, I guess.

The Sunday Times - 'Bunny'

Agency: Ogilvy, Cape Town

Production: Velocity Films, Cape Town

Director: Jeana Theron

This one's simple...

Save the rabbit?

Save the rain forest!

Read the paper online!

Hovis Bread - 'Go On Lad'

Agency: MCBD, London

Production: Rattling Stick, London

Director: Ringan Ledwidge

Advertising can, and should, be entertaining and this commercial is. Nicely shot, good atmosphere, nice young fellow, exciting adventure, life's an amazing journey!

Luckily there are still things that you can hold on to in these hard times...life isn't so bad after all.

I don't know the brand, we don't have it in Holland, please send me a loaf! Thanks!

Environmental Defense - 'Polar Bears'

Agency: Ogilvy & Mather, New York

Production: Biscuit Filmworks, Los Angeles

Director: Tim Godsall

Dear mister media planner: What is this brilliant activation idea doing on TV? Come on!

If we would have activated this idea globally in one day it would have ten folded the PR/Roll-out effect!!

Magnificent! One day of global knock down awareness. Think it over!

NewsReel 17/10/08

Apologies to those that eagerly anticipated the arrival of The Reel newsletter into their inboxes on Friday (which should be all of you!) but we were scuppered by a technical hitch. Not wanting to tip you over the edge, after spending the whole weekend pining for your weekly hit of Reel goodness, but this is the penultimate newsletter that will be contributed to by Deputy Editor Sam Bonwick, as he is embarking on new adventures in Melbourne, Australia. In future please send any news and press releases to editor@thereel.net and we will continue to do our best to feature it here.

Happy 60th birthday Universal Declaration of Human Rights!
From the 31st October 150 cinema screens around the country will be screening a short film created especially to mark the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The three-minute film entitled ‘Everybody’, starring a strange combination of Jeremy Irons and floppy haired radio presenter George Lamb, is a part live-action; part animated (by Reel favourites Sweet World) piece based on five illustrations from the children’s picture book ‘We Are All Born Free’ from Amnesty’s publishing division.

The project was funded with the help of the Co-Operative Bank’s ‘Customers Who Care’ scheme. The bank’s Campaigns Manager Melanie Phillips said, ‘The Co-operative Bank is supporting this film as part of its campaign with Amnesty to help people everywhere understand the human rights we should all enjoy. We know it is an issue important to our customers – with 98% supporting our Ethical Policy position on human rights. This film offers a valuable opportunity to take the message out to new audiences and bring the issues to life in a fun and accessible way.’ You can also see ‘Everyone’ online and it will be shown in schools across the country – also look out for it on The Reel in the coming weeks. For more info visit to www.protectthehuman.com.

A Russian Disqo
Post-centric digital production specialists Disqo have added a Russian programming company, InteractiveWorks, to their business. The addition of the Russian company strengthens the creative offering of the division of Golden Square and has helped secure big productions for the likes of DDB, Dare and Sony.

InteractiveWorks specialise in interactive design, application and software development and, with their UK team headed by Ian Bytchek and Konstantin Polozov in London, they will give Disqo access to their full resources in Togliatti, Central Russia. Disqo’s creative director, Ben Leyland, said: “We’re increasingly getting involved in projects where costs and timings have to be kept to a minimum. Rather than relying on several disparate companies, our unique access to wide-ranging facilities and expertise means we can cover the whole production ourselves – everything from directing to post production and programming.

Dennis is a Serious director
Jonathan Dennis, who was previously a multi-award winning director for the BBC and Red Bee Media has signed to Serious Pictures. Jonathan’s recent work includes Specsavers and the Euro 2008 ‘Who will you support?’ spots.

Sarah is Taylor-made for S-W-H
Amsterdam-based creative ad agency S-W-H has announced Sarah Taylor as their new Manager of PR and New Business. Sarah’s move to the independently-owned agency is with immediate effect. The Reel like Sarah very much and we wish her luck with her new job after four years with Wieden + Kennedy.

Addictive do it again
Video remix specialists Addictive TV have just remixed the new Hollywood movie 'Max Payne' for 20th Century Fox (out next month) and are currently in the studio having a go at British comedy ‘Easy Virtue’ starring Colin Firth and Kristin Scott-Thomas.

This month also sees the Amsterdam Dance Event host a special exhibition of Addictive TV's remix work at Concrete Image in the Dutch capital, where the guys will also be playing at the launch of the night on October 25th.

HD - Fragmented

Have you seen the latest showboating TV and cinema ad featuring Johnny Depp, Wayne Rooney and … er … a Brazilian Tree Frog? Don’t panic, it’s not a new all-star re-imagining of ‘The Wind In The Willows’ (although Rooney would make a fine Moley we’re sure) but the latest attempt to show us ‘stuck in the 90’s’ plebs what sumptuous HD looks like. And it bloody works.

It must be a hard task trying to describe the visual advantages of high definition viewing when your medium is standard definition, but when approached by Sky to do just that, London based agency brothers and sisters utilised a snazzo technique they’d become well versed in – fragment animation.

Granted access to an archive of still photographs from premium Sky content, including blockbuster movies, classic sporting events and ground-breaking documentaries, the creative team of Ros Parr and Tim Clark sifted through hundreds of images to select the few that would both sell the service and maximise the ‘fragment’ effect.

Once chosen, the team took the stills to UNIT post production facility for the time consuming process of animating. Separating out each individual element (blade of grass, fleck of mud, bead of rain) from its surroundings, the image was then divided into a series of layers, each of which being individually controlled to achieve the desired effect in the animation. Placed on a false z-axis, the resulting footage features depth, motion and clarity belying its ‘publicity still’ origins.
Speaking of the campaign, Andy Fowler, ECD of brothers and sisters, comments, “We wanted to convey the power of HD to the screen and chose fragment animation to demonstrate the visual power of high-definition television. With so much rich content to choose from on Sky, it is great to be involved and celebrate even a small proportion of this incredible service.”

Robert Tansey, Director of Brand Marketing, BSkyB, adds: “This campaign reflects the emotion, intensity and richness of life in high definition, focusing on the extra feel you get through a viewing experience which is up to four times clearer. With millions of HD ready TVs yet to offer an HD experience to their owners, this campaign will outline the quality of experience Sky+HD customers are enjoying right now.”

Achieving the enviable ability to improve with each viewing - betcha didn’t notice the splashing raindrop or Capt Jack’s swinging belt-buckle on your first watch – The Reel reckons this campaign does wonders for expressing the pin-sharp benefits of HD to non-early-adopters (HD boxes in the post, cheers Sky). The technique even manages to work outside of the gogglebox, with the campaign spreading over TV, cinema, outdoor, direct mail, press and digital – including both online and digital outdoor, such as electronic poster sites on the Underground.

The HD revolution is upon us, so it looks like there’ll be no escaping pixel-perfect renditions of the frog, the Sparrow or the Rooney.

Agency: brothers and sisters
Creatives: Ros Parr & Tim Clark
Agency Producer: Pat Stimpson
Agency Planner: Matt Boffey
Directors: Ros Parr & Tim Clark
Producer: Pat Stimpson
Editor & Editing Co.: Visual Effects Artist - Charlie Cassidy @ UNIT
Post Production Co.: UNIT
Audio Post Production: 750mph