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April 2005

TWIST DIRECTOR MIKE NELESEN ADAPTS TO DIVERSE SURROUNDINGS IN NEW CAMPAIGN FOR UNION BANK & TRUST

The campaign features an eclectic set of characters entering Union Bank & Trust and finding that their personalities are perfectly matched by their surroundings. In the first spot, "Kid," the camera follows an elderly woman as she enters the bank and looks around. The scene then shifts to reveal her perspective, which shows the room transformed into an ornate lobby that one might find in an elegant five-star hotel. As the woman is greeted by the teller, the camera focuses in on a businessman behind her who is also entering the bank. In a similar change of perspective, the bank is now shown through the businessman's eyes: a blue light reveals a man giving a presentation, alongside various charts and computer equipment. In the final transition, a toy car and scooter are shown racing across the bank's floor and we see that the teller is now dressed in a quirky striped shirt and bowtie. Just then, it is revealed that a young boy has entered the bank alongside one of his parents. The spot ends wi th the Union Bank & Trust logo and a voiceover explaining: "No matter who you are, you'll feel like you belong. Union Bank & Trust: close to the customer." A second spot, "Dog," follows the same storyline, and concludes with a customers' canine and feline friends just as comfortable as their owners at Union Bank & Trust.

"I have a lot of respect for this creative team," notes Twist Director Mike Nelesen. "They have extremely high expectations and standards. They brought us a uniquely challenging opportunity, and then did everything they could to make the project a success. With that kind of fearless, all-out effort, I'm sure they're going to continue producing great work."

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HARVARD PILGRIM HEALTH CARE RETURNS TO MAD MAD JUDY'S EDITOR/SOUND DESIGNER STEVE HAMILTON FOR NEW CAMPAIGN

In "Salon," a young woman is having her hair blown dry. She begins: "My company now offers Harvard Pilgrim, so I decided to switch." Humorously, there is no stylist in attendance, yet as she speaks her hair mysteriously rises, blows around, and falls beside her face. "I heard really great things about them, but I never expected that they would call and welcome me as a new member." The invisible stylist continues to manipulate her hair: "I mean with all the new members they get, they still took the time to make me feel like I'm the only one." As the tag line is spoken, the stylist appears, mid-brush, beside her and continues his task of blow-drying her hair, while the salon fills with clients around her.

"Construction" and "Crossing Guard" follow a similar premise as the owner of a construction company details how Harvard Pilgrim makes things so easy for a small business owner; and a crossing guard tells how her husband changed his job and they now have Harvard Pilgrim where they were able to keep their doctors. Just as in "Salon," when the construction company owner and crossing guard point out how Harvard Pilgrim made them feel like the company's only client, the world around them mysteriously appears. In "Construction," the owner is joined on a building site by his crew. In "Crossing Guard," she is joined by children and parents crossing the street, and cars and buses driving by.

"Last year's campaign operated under the same conceptual premise and was a great success. The client loved it and wanted more of the same. This provided a big challenge for Doug and Eivind at Hill Holliday to up the stakes creatively," notes Steve Hamilton, Mad Mad Judy's Editor/Sound Designer. "Each scenario needed to seem particularly unusual and surprising since people already were familiar with the concept of the empty places being filled from the previous campaign. The 'Salon' seemed interesting, but of course provided a huge technical challenge getting the young woman's hair to rise naturally and since human hair represents the most technically daunting material for any visual FX artist to work with because of it's detail, randomness, and complexity, the gauntlet was laid down right off the bat. They invited both me and visual effects supervisor Geoff McAuliffe from Brickyard Visual FX in Boston into the process very early in the pre-production stage and we were both on-set, helping to ensure that we could pull off a convincing rendering of visuals, and it shows in the final product. Having Academy Award-winning cinematographer Robert Richardson, ASC, behind the lens certainly upped the creative quality as well."

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TERMINAL'S JONATHAN DEL GATTO PREPARES FOR TAX TIME WITH NEW CAMPAIGN FOR H&R BLOCK

The newest campaign for H&R Block, edited by Terminal's Jonathan Del Gatto, shows why H&R Block is the place to go to maximize your tax returns. In "Shredder" and "Big Bucks," we learn of two new business offers - one that allows customers to double check past refunds for free, and another that grants loans to certain individuals for up to the total amount of their refund. In the third spot, "Maxed Out," we hear the more personal story of a struggling college student. "Maxed Out" opens on Stacy, who as we're told by an H&R Block representative in voice-over, is a "nursing student by day, waitress by night." After Stacy gets home from an exhausting day at work and school, she stares blankly into her refrigerator as there is nothing to eat. Looking at her, it's clear that she is not only emotionally drained, but also financially drained. The H&R Block narrator then notes: "it's estimated that people overpay their taxes by nearly a billion dollars." We then see Stacy and the representative hard at work on her taxes. In the end, Stacy's struggles are over as we learn that H&R Block got Stacy the maximum refund possible. The representative says with a wink, "we put half in an IRA and the other half...I'm sure she spent it on school supplies." We then see Stacy dancing up a storm having clearly used some of her refund check on some nighttime fun.

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FINAL CUT SPREADS THE "GOOD" IN LATEST SPOTS FOR DELTA

Ad agency Ogilvy & Mather recently commissioned the talent of Final Cut Editor Sarah Iben for a new feel-good campaign for client Delta. The four spots are part of the airline's transformation to become more customer focused, and celebrate the relationship between Delta's customers and its employees.

The first spot, "Smile/Anthem," hit the small screen in mid-February with the other three commercials breaking this month. Under the tagline "Good Goes Around," the spots convey the idea that good things happen when employees and customers work together. Set to the cheerful track "Happiness Runs" by Donovan Leitch, "Smile/Anthem" begins with a man checking in at Delta's SimpliFares kiosk. A female airline employee walking behind him becomes the focus of the next scene as she helps two elderly women find their destination. The spot then continues its series of interconnected endearing moments from an airline pilot snapping a digital photo of young travelers to a ground crew employee entertaining children with a "smiley face" etched into a foggy window. "It starts with one good thing and one good thing leads to another," says the voiceover. A woman sends a drawing and "I Miss You" message on her handheld PDA, which is received via cell phone by the man in the opening scene. The clever spot concludes with the voiceover, "SimpliFares from Delta" and the tagline, "Good Goes Around."

The three spots, "Simplifares/Adam," "Check-In Kiosk/Anthony" and "Delta.com/Monica," are structured as frames of movie-like stories on rotating reels and highlight the convenience of traveling with Delta's convenient, customer-focused programs.

HI-WIRE COLORIST OSCAR OBOZA HELPS CREATE THE LOOK OF LOW

HI-WIRE's Oscar Oboza recently completed color correction on a new video for Sup Pop Records darlings Low. Phil Harder of Harder/Fuller Films, who developed a specific visual aesthetic for numerous videos depicting the rock trio from Duluth, Minnesota, directed "Monkey." Oboza, a frequent collaborator with Director Harder, was charged with helping to create the signature look for the film, which is as haunting and dark as the late night drive depicted in the clip. Throughout Low's history, the band has accumulated acclaim from critics and musicians. Initially garnering attention as leaders of the '90s slowcore movement, Low went on to develop a sonic repertoire that incorporated pop, R&B and dissonant rock n' roll. In "Monkey," the band embarks on a journey that culminates in an evening of mystery and the possibility of alien abduction. As voyeurs simply along for the ride, we know the fate of the monkey is sure to be an untimely demise.

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