Time for comfort food
A young woman takes a leisurely stroll. She
suddenly stops dead in her tracks and lets out a bloodcurdling scream before scampering in the opposite direction. No, she hasn’t found a mangled corpse, but instead a grounded orange maple leaf, a telltale sign that fall is approaching. ‘Leaf,’ from Toronto’s Silverhammer, is effective because of one simple fact: Any winter-loathing Canadian can relate. The message is that ‘summer is only here for a limited time,’ so your days of enjoying a bucket of KFC in the haven of your backyard are numbered too. As if you
needed reminding.
associate account exec: Erica Ainsworth
director: Wade Sherman
production house: Avion Films
CMT’s new country fans
The average country music fan drives a rusty pickup with a rifle rack, right? Not according to Country Music Television, which maintains the genre has fans as diverse as the globe. This spot, created by Zig, neatly delivers the message. A couple of blokes in India calmly strum their sitars. Then one of them picks a few chords of ‘Duelling Banjos.’ With a subtle nod of the head (the acting in this commercial is superb), his pal agrees to join him. They pick up the tempo and bystanders bop along, proving that anyone can get into country.
creative director: Elspeth Lynn
copywriter: Aaron Starkman
art director: Stephen Leps
director: Michael Downing
production house: Radke Films
$13,000 House party
Produced in-house at CHUM Television, ‘House Party’ is designed to convince young people that drinking and driving is not a good idea and that they can take steps to avoid it and still be considered ‘cool.’ The spot opens on a middle-aged couple who have returned home only to find partiers crashed
everywhere. They walk into their son’s room and notice the jumble of car keys hanging from his wrist, at which point they realize he’s done a good thing. Remarkably,
‘House Party’ was shot on film for a budget of just $13,000.
producer/writer/director: Gord McWatters
production manager: Steve Hickey
director of photography: Adam Marsden
editor/sound design: Daragh Sankey