INTUIT
"STORMS A'BREWING"
AGENCY: RPAAdweek: Ads That Won The Super Bowl
Behind The Scenes: AD AGE "Anatomy of an Ad" Part 1, Part 2, CBS News, Stash Magazine
Super Bowl's Greatest Commercials of All Time | Man v Beast
After winning the Small Business Big Game challenge, Death Wish Coffee received an all expenses paid 30 second Super Bowl Commercial. The spot called "Storms A’Brewing," would highlight the full power of Death Wish Coffee using the creative parallel between the strength of the brew and the fearlessness of a crew of Vikings. The story follows a ship of Norse seafarers who, having conquered all lands, have now set off to conquer death - and to "drink forever in the halls of Valhalla.” And just as it seems they have sailed over a deadly waterfall, we learn they were actually in a cup of Death Wish Coffee all along.
We shot this over two days in Prague, building a 50 foot ship and placing it on a massive gimbal to simulate the motion of the stormy seas. The cold air in that Czech warehouse that we sat in as we shot, was nothing compared to the chill felt by the actors as we repeatedly blasted the Vikings with water cannons. However I was impressed by the warm comraderery and 'in-character' power of the cast used to tough it out…with our lead actor eventually losing his voice due to the true force of his delivery.
My two goals for this spot were to make this feel like a real movie (as the agency liked the thought of misdirecting the audience into thinking this is a film trailer) and nailing the Honey-I-Shrunk-The-Kids style reveal. To bring it to life in this way, we treated it like a film every step of the way. Building out worlds and back stories, narratives and characters for each of our Vikings. From here we let their characters inform things like wardrobe, position on the ship, and so on. And for the reveal, we kept it simple, and worked hard to keep it all in one shot, starting on top of the ship and landing in their mouth.
For the creative team, the sharp script from RPA helped us gather some really excellent folks on this job including cinematographer Claudio Miranda, the costume designer Mr. Gammon, and the VFX force of MPC New York and Victoria Osborn who helped bring the larger world to life.
CREDITS
RPA CREATIVE TEAM: Adam Lowrey, Nathan Crow, Eric Aldama, Lauren Geschke
AGENCY PRODUCER: Carolyn Casey
PRODUCTION COMPANY Prettybird
DIRECTOR Isaiah Seret
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER Ali Brown
LINE PRODUCER Julie Sawyer
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY Claudio Miranda
PRODUCTION DESIGNER: Radek Hanek
COSTUME DESIGN Mr. Gammon
CASTING Kharmel Cochrane
EDITOR Matt Murphy
COLORIST Mark Gethin
VFX: MPC / Victoria Osborn
MUSIC SUPERVISOR: Jon Oda
COMPOSER: Thomas Bergersen, Nick Phoenix
SOUND DESIGN: Machine Head / Stephen Dewey
MIX: Lime / Loren Silber
FEATURING: Diarmaid Murtagh
SERVICE COMPANY: Unit + Sofa /Fady Salame / Martin Sobotka / Tereza Kalova