Shilo For Saatchi & Saatchi London : Guinness “Spoken Word”

This elegant and poetic piece, directed by Shilo, mixes an amazing performance by international spoken word artist Ainsley Burrows, with flowing, metaphorical cg elements and a cinematic live action location.

Working with Saatchi & Saatchi London, Shilo has crafted some impressively integrated moments that add a nice visual spin to accompany Burrow’s voice. It’s such a nice breath of fresh air to have spoken word drive the audio and create the tone vs. the typical monotone voiceovers that we hear soo much today in TV spots.

Project Name: Guinness “Spoken Word”
Length: :60
Film Location: The Peninsula at Bayonne Harbor – Bayonne, NJ
Market and Media Distribution: Caribbean TV

Advertising Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi
City/State: London, England
Creative Director: Tim Hearn
Creative Team: Dave Govier, Levi Slavin
Executive Broadcast Director: Andy Gulliman
Regional Planning Director: Karen Johnstone
Account Director: Frederic Roger
Account Manager: Victoria Reiz
TV Producer: Laura Mueller
TV Production Assistant: Emma Wolanski

Production Company: Shilo at Hanrahan
City/State: Bicoastal, USA
Director: Shilo
Creative Director: Andre Stringer
Director of Photography: Martin Ahlgren
Associate Creative Director: Evan Dennis
3D Lead: Tamir Sapir
Editors: Josh Bodnar, Andre Stringer, Galen Summer
Illustrator: Zach Johnsen, Evan Dennis
Animators: Henning Koczy, Craig Kohlmeyer, Stieg Retlin
Compositors: Bashir Hamid, Tamir Sapir, Andre Stringer
3D Artists: Warren Heimall, Craig Kohlmeyer, Christina Ku, Youngmin Kim,
Chris Fung, Joji Tsuruga
Rotoscopers: Constance Conrad, Joel Voelker, Chris West, Stieg Retlin
Trackers: Chris West, Joel Voelker
Producer: Lindsay Bodanza
Line Producer: Nina Goldberg
Executive Producer: Tracy Chandler
Executive Producer for Hanrahan: Mark Hanrahan

Music and Sound Design : Human

Principal Talent: Ainsley Burrows

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32 Comments

maus

Pretty nice, but did anyone else feel like the audio was cut a bit roughly? Especially the hands in the stars and feet on the floor part. Still a lovely piece though.

NoiZzy

Wow…. nicly done, nice acting… nice particles ….

my opinion something is missing in the end…. it could end more dramatic….

anyways nice ad…. =)
4.5*

david

Highly legit animation. Pretty epic… for a beer spot.

Frozensmokeprod

Wow

VincentLammers

Love the spot. Great performance and timing. and i love the fluidness of the animation/cg.

Cheers!

Vincent

iamsteve

what a heap of S***!

it looks nice but i think saatchi & saatchi have slipped up here.

nice work shilo, saatchi take your head out of you ass ole!

ryandecarlo

Looks dope! Reminds me of Motion Theory mixed with psyop’s Smart Touch PC.

BUT, how’s this in relation with guinness beer?

satellitegml

if it werent for the title, this spot couldve been used in the olympics

dsign

it’s cool Shilo got to do something abstract and poetic and all (I’m all for that), but isn’t it the responsibility of the agency to at least make you feel like there’s some tie-in between the concept and the product behind it?

I guess it’d make sense if Guiness was sponsoring some sort of poetic performer event, but for just a tv spot….it’s too much of a disconnect in my mind.

Please feel free to enlighten us (someone from Shilo or Saatchi and Saatchi) more about the creative brief and how this spot is being marketed.

Kalone

The visuals were outstanding, so I gave it 5 points.
But the guy and his words were simply embarassing, even more when you discover it`s a commercial for Guiness Beer. Another sample for nonsense marketing.

MHR

yeah, kinda have to agree w the comments here. the visuals were real nice, but… is this guy on a 28 year journey to find a six pack or what? cuz unless he’s walking really slow, it’s not that far to the corner 7 11.

if the concept was trying to relay some metaphorical or transcendent journey, I would think chugging beer along the way would actually slow you down, if not send you on reverse course.

anyway, again, nice graphical work.

LIKESYRUP

Great work guys. Congrats to all who were involved I loved it.

eckythump

great looking but another vacant huge waste of money. bet there was 6 different creatives all fighting over this, hence the lack of direction. you could tack any old logo at the end, it wouldn’t have made any difference… “reach for the stars… wallmart.”

eckythump

you know, we should be told what the budget is for these pieces. then we can comment better on how good they are…. c’mon justin. let’s see some numbers… that list of credits is longer than my phone bill.

justin

When I first started doing this blog stuff like five years ago, I asked for budgets a couple times. I quickly realized that such a request smacked of intense naivete on my part and probably merited more than a few chuckles on the other end of the inbox.

I’ve since learned that no one along the production chain—from the client on down to the post-production studio—wants to divulge numbers—not even rough numbers. It’s just bad for business. :-)

eckythump

maybe we could have a ‘guess the budget’ vote beside each piece? and the winner gets to be an assistant-3d-tracking- rotoscoping-executive-director for the next lexus ad…? or maybe we could see some more interesting work from all the design/animation schools out there? the french stuff is amazing, what about all the US design schools? they must be producing some innovative work that doesn’t take 50 people and the a budget the size of argentina’s GDP to produce… and i bet they’d love the exposure too. anything to balance out all this technically perfect, idea-free work we’re seeing more and more of. it’s all very uninspiring.

MHR

thus, the new Student blog section.

justin

Sounds like you’re ready for a break, eckythump.

Marc B.

I liked some of the animations but it looks more like an ad for underwear.

defasten

a theatrical, epic, inspiring, motivating, driven…

…beer ad.

lol

monovich

I dunno, I don’t see the cause for outcry here. They are making some big emotional statement and then showing a logo. It happens all the time in advertising. What is the difference between this and Lexus sponsoring the Hollywood Bowl? Its a play for coolness/greatness/credibility by association.

It may not be a killer concept or a new one, but its tried and true on some level or they wouldn’t use the formula over and over.

The graphics were very nice, by the way.

MHR

no outcry, just perception – isn’t that the whole point of advertising?

you’re very right – people/products have always sponsored event/concepts outside of their normal marketing boundaries. though, for some reason this package just doesn’t seem to flow like your avg, forgettable ad pairings (i.e. Lexus/Hollywood Bowl). it might have something to do with the past associations constructed with normal alcohol advertising seeming so different from this, though I really think its the message that this particular piece is trying to convey that’s an issue – Burrows is talking about motivation, philosophy, transcendence, strength, etc., while beer is usually about fun, relaxation, sex, and partying – but more literal, it’s a depressant, so it just doesn’t seem to jive with the enlightenment concept of the spoken word.

but, I suppose that’s more for advertising class. just to reiterate, extremely solid, enjoyable graphics.

Kalone

It kinda reminds me of that Johnny Walker ad. With the android philosophizing – and then the whole thing gets crushed by the awful JW association at the end…

dhanai

guiness ay…

martz

when i go on my “journey”, i reach for Colt 45.

tomorrowisclosed

the first Guiness slogan was ‘Guiness makes you drunk’. I think we may have strayed too far from that.

bobtilton

I don’t know… I see that message in here. Maybe if he were swaggering with pint in hand, eh?

Greg

Its very easy to lose perspective of the big picture when we see pieces like this posted on the internet. It’s only being showcased here as means to share work.
This was not shown on this site for the purpose of a commercial to get you to buy Guinness, although if you want to crit the theory behind the campaign, perhaps best to look past the surface.

The target market and Media Distribution for this spot is the Caribbean and the only place that this actually aired, to my knowledge, was on TV in Jamaica. Never seen in the states at all.
Not to mention that its not even regular Guinness. Its called Foreign Extra, only available in Europe, Africa, the Caribbean and Asia.

Point being that advertising agencies have lots of experience targeting their potential clients. The concept was not an accident nor a blunder on Saatchi’s creative team. Anyone that thinks so, IMHO, may have a short-sighted perspective on the complete process involved with these big campaigns and the GREAT depth that is explored through the process.

All that said, Let’s not lose sight of the great collaboration that must take place when agencies work with design and production companies. The inspiring part, for me, is coming out the other side with a great piece of work.

Kalone

O RLY???

You must think that we`re all dumb. So what about that other commercial I have compared to this one – that from Johnny Walker : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gdnZsZQJqA – and this one was aired everywhere. But there are lots and lots of awfully stupid examples for weird and fruitless marketing. Of an amazingly big chunk of those I don`t even remember the brand…even if I try.

Greg

I don’t think anyone is dumb at all! , and sorry if that’s how I came across.

Just my honest response to some of those previous comments.

I think it is a privilege to be able to comment.

As for the JWalkr link. comment…
I don’t follow stats on marketing campaigns .
IMHO, its all your perspective.
fruitless marketing to you and your friends.
groundbreaking and influential to people you never met.

My opinion though, is that I liked that JW spot. ; )

motionid

Sorry, but where are the reflections of the graphics in the puddles on the floor? Sorry to point out the obvious but if you are going to REALLY pull it off you don’t miss those little details :-)

tomorrowisclosed

https://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Bs0WCUZqoJg

this is where we should be heading, even though it’s from the past.

Comments are closed.