Friday, August 07, 2009

Keep Walking

If you have 6 minutes, watch this new ad for Johnnie Walker:



It tells the story of the brand (and the pack) in a very engaging way, and will make you want to go to Scotland and drink a lot.

I don't usually promote ads, especially not long ones, but this one is awesome. And I've been to those Scottish hills (or at least been near them), and they are even cooler in person.

Here's an interview with the director. It looks effortless but it took 40 takes, and this was done at 8pm on the last day of the shoot.

I didn't realize what an amazing actor Robert Carlyle is. The whole thing is dependent on him keeping you engaged. A cool question & answer:

What was the most challenging element of the job?
By 5pm on day one we hadn't managed to do one complete take. We therefore had nothing. We soon worked out that the reason for this was the huge bank of TV's which we'd placed 2 meters in the wrong position. Robert was having to slow down his walking and speed up his talking in a way that was artificial and was throwing him. There was nothing we could do but rebuild the TV's which meant wrapping and staring again the next day having achieved nothing on the first day. The following morning there were a lot of anxious faces and murmurings of "fixing it in post". Then Robert turned up and did the very first take of the day in one. As I said - the man's a genius.

4 comments:

70MPH70 said...

I enjoyed watching that. I can't say I'd watch it again, but it was interesting. It does put me in the mood for a whiskey.

TheMediaDude said...

The fact that you made it through a 6 minute commercial is accomplishment enough!

Boywonderesq said...

I loved this, and I don't even drink whiskey. I need to start drinking whiskey.

your sil said...

awesome commercial! when I used to drink Scotch in law school, I was a member of the Striding Man Society - you would love it, they have great tasting events and private parties.