Reel Opinion: Mark Denton

For the third instalment of our increasingly popular 'Reel Opinion' feature we've delved into production and secured the musings of a (very busy) director and MD who needs no introduction.

Mark Denton
Director & MD Coy!
President of Creative Circle

Fortunately, I’ve been a bit busy lately and even though I watched these ads over a week ago, I’ve only just written the review. So it’s already a good test of just how memorable they are.

Here goes:

PETA 'Pusher'

Agency: The Cricket Club, New York

Production: Japanese Monster / Boy Genius, Venice CA

Director: Scott Corbett

I like this one:

From what I remember, it opens on the exterior of a high security prison as a fat bloke dressed in white walks alongside the perimeter fence. His progress is intercut with images of the inmates who are not normal prisoners but hybrid chicken men, part human, part rooster. It’s all very dark and disturbing and when our white-suited gent finally makes an appearance we see that it’s Colonel Sanders of the fried chicken fame. The viewer is then invited to visit the kentuckyfriedcruelty.com website. Luckily, unlike the shop, you don’t have to be off your face to go there.

Washington Lottery 'Birds'

Agency: Publicis, Seattle

Production: Sticks + Stones, Santa Monica

Director: Jerry Brown

The second one was quite unforgettable too, but unfortunately for all the wrong reasons. This is an idea that probably looked better on paper than it did in reality. It’s all about the joy you experience when you win the Washington Lottery. They dramatise this by taking flightless birds like a chicken, penguin and emu up on a hang-glider to experience the ‘thrill’ of flying.
Sadly, the birds look like they aren’t enjoying the ride and I imagine that vast sums were spent in post painting out the resulting poo.

Sensoa 'Out of the Closet'

Agency: TBWA, Brussels

Production: Caviar, Brussels

Director: Frank Devos

The plot is something about the fictional first gay man describing his life story. To describe this as ‘hamfisted’ is an insult to people who have hams instead of fists.

COI 'Knife Crime: CCTV / Lecture'

Agency: RCKR/Y&R, London

Production: Sonny, London

Director: Guy Manwaring

I watched a couple of commercials in the same campaign designed to help stop knife crime. It’s a serious subject that’s rightly had a lot of media coverage recently. In these spots we see CCTV footage of an everyday street scene where someone ends up getting knifed and a lecture showing slides of horrendous knife injuries. The ads go on to explain that if you carry a knife you’re more likely to get stabbed. They’ve probably done loads of research to back up this strategy. I can’t help feeling that a lot of youngsters might be tempted to ‘tool up’ because it looks so dangerous out there.

Honda 'Jump'

Agency: Wieden + Kennedy, London

Production: Knucklehead, London

Director: Johnny Green

A load of sky divers jump out of a plane, link up and form car part shapes. While we cut to shots of a man driving a Honda. The climax is when the skydivers form the logo. Unfortunately, it’s every bit as good as it sounds. Surprising really, coming from one of the sexiest agencies in the world and one of the most exciting directors around at the moment. It probably cost a few bob too.

Oh well, back to work.

NewsReel 28/02/08

Remember to keep sending in all your adland news - even if it is just shameless self promotion - and we'll do our best to feature it here. Please send all press releases or anything that could fall under the banner of news to sam@thereel.net.

Ahoy! It’s Coy!
Mark Denton achieved a lot through Therapy – shooting a multitude of commercials, publishing a magazine, and a book, founding an award-winning design company and masterminding the re-launch of the Creative Circle – but the time has come for him to be discharged and go all Coy!, so he has founded Coy! Communications along with long-term producer Sara Cummins, after an amicable split with Therapy Films other partners Malcolm Venville and Guy Manwaring.

Ex-Therapy directors Simon Levene and Michael Baldwin kick-off the directorial roster of the new company and Kelly Cook joins as Head of Sales & Marketing.

Focus on VW’s new website

Prime Focus have proudly announced the completion of nearly a year’s work on the new Volkswagen UK website. The London post-production house has finally delivered the astonishing 16,000 individual CGI assets which have been used by Tribal DDB to build the new site. The end result of this highly complicated and too-lengthy-to-fully-discuss-here process is an attractive, cutting-edge and actually quite fun website that allows customers to select and view 17 different Volkswagen models, and then to specify each model with all of its available variations, bringing web design and moving-image post-production yet another step closer together.

A Mars a day...
We at The Reel, like a lot of you guys, get nostalgic about old ads, strap lines and jingles, so we thought it was worth a mention that Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO is bringing back the old ‘A Mars a day helps you work, rest and play' strap line which was pulled in 1995. It has, however, been given a noughties twist; now a new generation will simply be saying ‘work, rest, play’ as they tuck into the first bite of the chocolate, nougat and caramel goodness. The new spot, featuring monks dancing to House of Pain’s ‘Jump Around’ will air on 2nd March, so look out for it on The Reel soon. For fellow fans of the old campaign, see below:



Mad Cow
Terence Stevens-Prior has joined Mad Cow’s roster for worldwide representation. Stevens-Prior has been a director since 1996, when he moved over from his previous incarnate as an agency creative. The New Zealand-born helmer left Mustard for Mad Cow, and has previously shot ads for clients such as Pepsi, Carlsberg and Toyota.

Lion's New Den
Only recently established, London-based production company Red Lion have made the bold move of opening up their very own art department. The new division called Agitate will pave the way for filmmaking artists to move into the big bad world of commercials production. The opening line-up consists of Jordan Baseman, who has exhibited his work at the Serpentine Gallery, Austrian Goldsmiths, RCA and Vienna Academy of Fine Art graduate Ursula Meyer, Emily Richardson, who has created a series of 'time lapse portraits' that question our relationship to the landscape; CG specialist Claude Chabot, and toy-filmer Stuart Croft.