AT&T's
mashup cinema campaign gets more extreme
Behind
the work: Spaghetti Western meets kids' animation in BBDO's latest
genre-colliding ad
Ad Age
By
Alexandra Jardine
May
24, 2019
AT&T
has turned the dial up on its genre-mixing cinema campaign promoting its “More
for Your Thing” platform: It spliced together a Spaghetti Western and a
whimsical children’s animation.
The
90-second ad from BBDO, directed by Furlined’s Dougal Wilson, is perhaps the
most extreme mashup of the series to date. The campaign, which aims to cement
AT&T’s status as an entertainment player, debuted last summer with
cinematic spots that unexpectedly morphed from one genre to another—a rom-com
became a horror film while an actioner switched to a musical. It went on to
feature a feel-good sports film that transformed into a sci-fi thriller.
The
new ad will begin airing on May 24, ahead of big summer movies like
“Aladdin." It starts off in a classic Western scenario, as a a gang of
grizzled bandits blow up a steam train running through Arizona’s Monument
Valley. But after the train derails and the smoke clears, we switch to the
animated footage, featuring cute railroad cars signing a jaunty melody about
how they “gotta get back on the track” as the bandits look on in astonishment,
bewildered by their own physical transformation into cartoon figures.
For
the latest spot, BBDO hired British director Dougal Wilson, known for his
Christmas ads for John Lewis (including "The Long Wait" and
"Monty the Penguin”) and more recently, Apple spots, like “Barbers” and
"Unlock."
“We
wanted someone who could deliver genuine warmth and surprise—the kind you get
from the best kids’ films,” says Matt MacDonald, Group Executive Creative
Director, BBDO New York.
Wilson
says the storyline appealed to him as a fan of both Westerns and animation. “I
grew up watching a lot of John Ford films and Sergio Leone movies, like ‘Once
Upon a Time in the West,’” he says.
On
his turn in the AT&T series, Wilson says he wanted to add an element of the
self-referential. This is the first time in the campaign that the characters
appear cognizant of the changeover. “I wanted to get that feeling into it of
the characters being surprised and bewildered when it switched into a comedic
genre.”
Western
scenes were shot in the northern Nevada Northern Railway, a railroad museum. A
heavy blizzard just before filming began threatened the production. Wilson,
who’s used to having to create fake snow for his Christmas ad shoots, says it’s
the first job he’s worked on where snow actually had to be painted out (by VFX
house Method). The butte peaks from Monument Valley were also added in later
(in case you were wondering, there’s no railroad in Monument Valley).
On
the animation portion, Wilson worked with Paul Harrod, production designer on
Wes Anderson’s Oscar-nominated film “Isle of Dogs” and Harrod’s Portland-based
animation company, House Special. Previously known as Laika/House, its work
includes movies like “Missing Link” and “ParaNorman.”
As
well as classics like “Thomas the Tank Engine” and “The Little Engine That
Could,” Wilson was inspired by the films of stop-motion pioneer Rankin Bass and
aimed for a “charming, naïve” quality to
the train characters. The voice cast includes “Futurama” actor Jon Di Maggio,
who played Bender in the series.
The
music was another crucial detail. Wilson himself wrote the spot’s opening tune
as well as the song the engines sing as they’re climbing back on the track. “I
just put it together on GarageBand at my mother’s house over Christmas,” he
says.
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