McCann Macedonia Promotes Local Beer via Chaos and Marriage

There’s no better way to kick off the holiday weekend than with a brew ad.

McCann Skopsje, the agency’s Macedonian branch, obliges with a campaign for Skopsko, billed as the oldest and most popular brand of its kind in said country.

Directed by Milcho Manchevski, the :90 film concerns a series of vignettes alternating between intimate moments with friends and thoughts of impending doom leading up to a couple’s nuptials. Despite the language barrier, one gets the point: disasters averted relationships strengthened with a little help from your friendly neighborhood beer brand and some scenery from Macedonia’s capital city, Skopje.

Regarding the setting and tone of the campaign that carries the tagline “Skopsko for Us,” editor Peter Mostert of post-production company Hooligan explains:

 “These spots exemplify Milcho’s knack for creating pictures that masterfully transcend the traditional boundaries of cinema and advertising. While there’s a tendency for beer spots to be overt or cliche, Milcho conceived something refreshing, especially in how these spots contextualize the brand so creatively – from props to situations to environments.”

According to the post-prodco, Mostert is currently cutting a series of :30 spots that will be a continuation of the “Buddies” campaign featuring the same cast.

Client: Pivara Skopje AD / Heineken / Coca Cola
Agency: McCann Skopje
Creative Director: Ivica Spasovski
Production Company: Kino Oko
Director: Milcho Manchevski
Screenwriter: Milcho Manchevski
Producer: Robert Naskov
Production Designer : Natasha Dimitrievska
Cinematographer: Vladimir Samoilovski
Casting Director: Milka Anchevska
Costume Designer: Milena Atanasovska
Make-up Designer: Goran Ignjatovski
Editorial Company: Hooligan
Producer: Lauren Basile
Editor: Peter Mostert
Assistant Editor: Tom Pina
Composer: Igor Vasilev-Novogradska
Audio Post: Audiohaus Skopje
Sound Mixer: Igor Popovski
Online Editing: Vanco Mirakovski
Color Grading: Pigmento Visual Studio
VFX: Vertigo Visuals

Nightmarish PSAs Depict Horrors of Human Trafficking

A group of New York ad professionals and filmmakers–minus the aid of any agency–including Point Blank Productions director Kim Dempster collaborated on “#StopTheNightmare,” a series of PSAs for Freedom For All, a non-profit created by former Ford Models CEO Katie Ford to end slavery.

“#StopTheNightmare” includes three, 30-second PSAs dealing with the horrors of human trafficking and sex slavery, each ending with the number for a hotline viewers can call to report or get confidential help. The spots highlight the surreal, nightmarish aspects of human trafficking, leaving viewers with the impression of the horrors faced by victims of human trafficking. “Indebted” is probably the most effective of these, showing a man who trades his passport for a card that says “labor.”

Through the nightmarish scenario that follows we learn that he faces this fate for the rest of his life. “Sex Slavery” uses similarly nightmarish imagery to implicate the horrors of a life in the sex trade. “Hidden in Plain Sight,” while not as emotionally affecting, delivers the important message (especially for those who fail to realize the scope of this global problem) that there are over 27 million people being trafficked around the world today. Taken as a whole, “#StopTheNightmare” is an effective, well-conceived statement, and a distinct departure from PSAs utilizing voiceover to educate viewers, opting instead to deliver a visual message about the nightmarish nature of the problem.

“The more I learned about modern-day slavery, all I could say was, ‘this is a nightmare,’ and that was the basis of our visual narrative — the nightmare of what people dream the first night they realize they have been forced into bondage,” explains Dempster.

Dempster enlisted the help of colleagues Lisa Kwon (Kwoni Productions) and Hooligan senior editor Peter Mostert to produce the PSAs, which included a four-month post-production process that included ” photo-real CG environments created by VFX companies Republic and Piranha.” Stick around for credits and the “Sex Slavery” PSA after the jump.

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