Ad Council

Mask Up

There’s one simple, easy and effective thing we can all do that would help protect ourselves and others from spreading COVID. Wear a mask. So, why has it become so difficult? 

Maybe we haven’t gotten people’s attention by wrapping that message in some stories that are funny, relatable, and entertaining. If it can help us get back to the things we’ve missed, it’s certainly worth a try.

TV is the medium people are already spending most of their leisure hours with. Our job is to some of that time to share a couple of spots that combine great casting and performances with a look that is cinematic and real. 

The Photography

We’re borrowing from the comic conventions of shows like The Office, but pushing the look with lighting, lensing, and camera movement that will lend the narratives more of a cinematic quality. 

We’ll work with a controlled palette of muted colors and warm tones that will complement our cinematic look. 

Book Club will be lit in a way that gives our people and setting a soft, warm visual aesthetic. We gain the feeling of sunlight outside the windows without pushing it to the point of appearing burned out. 

This will allow us to use directional side-light to illuminate our people, which will help add a cinematic nuance to the film.

In contrast, Concert will be set at nighttime. Pools of light emanating from lamps will add depth and dimension to the scenes. The familiar glow of the TV flickering on our people’s faces will bring another interesting texture. 

The camera movement will be consistent for both spots. We’ll open and close the stories with a stabilized camera mounted on a dolly. Once we launch into the montages, we’ll switch to a handheld camera. This will make it possible to capture much more coverage while also being supportive of the reality.

The Casting

Real, interesting, and relatable. The people we cast must have the talent to deliver naturalistic performances that have a relaxed conversational feel. 

When speaking to the camera they will have a friendly straightforwardness that is honest, authentic, and unaffected. Likewise, the montage moments will have a fly-on-the-wall feel. It’s as if we are peering in on moments captured in the midst of their actual lives.

This is also the type of project that would lend itself well to casting actors with experience in improv comedy. This will help us expand on all the moments that are scripted by allowing them to contribute some thoughts and actions of their own. 

We’ve all been living this same locked-in life. So, it would be interesting to see what our actors can bring to the table. 

Book Club

We open inside a suburban living room. The camera dollies in toward Grace, a middle-aged woman who is remarkably plain. Still, she manages to convey a bit of a no-nonsense attitude in her look. 

She sits on her sofa, wearing little if any makeup. At this point, she probably doesn’t even remember where she keeps her makeup. 

Her hair looks as if it’s about three or four inches longer than she might normally wear it. The length is a testament to the last time she’s visited her favorite salon—sometime last year.

She has a novel in her hand. There’s an iPad in front of her that she’s propped up on a cardboard Chardonnay box topped with a couple of books—a ZOOM system she’s developed over the past several months. 

She wears a pair of reading glasses. Six or seven pairs of similar reading glasses are left here and there in the room.

As the camera glides in, she addresses it. 

GRACE: It’s time for my monthly book club. 

Cutting to her POV we see the iPad screen bisected into multiple ZOOM frames—each containing a different woman’s face. And each managing to be not quite right in a different way. 

GRACE: An opportunity for us girls to connect and remind each other who’s on mute.

She speaks with a subtle wry irony, but her patience is limited.

Breaking her connection with the camera she turns to the screen of the iPad.

GRACE:  We can’t hear you, Dolores! 

Cutting back to the screen we see Dolores from a horrible angle looking up her nose. Her face never quite settles into a position that is in any way pleasing to look at.

In the smaller frames, the other women are all trying to get her attention, pointing and waving. Maybe one has a hand printed sign that says “UNMUTE.”

All part of the routine.

GRACE: And this is how we have to meet—because even the five of us in a living room together could cause COVID to spread faster than Nancy’s gossip. 

We cut back to Grace. She’s wearing a resigned smile. It is what it is, but it would be nice to somehow get back to normal.

GRACE: That’s exactly why I wear a mask wherever I go. Because the more I do, the sooner I can go back to a friend’s house and judge their interior design.

VO: I wanna tell my husband I don’t need a ride home and then call him after book club to tell him I need a ride home.

I want to go to a friend’s house only to immediately want to go home again.

I want to wear pants that don’t have a drawstring again.

I wanna destroy half a charcuterie board.

Under the VO we see a handheld a series of vignettes:

Dolores covers the camera with her hand and laughs.

Her iPad falls off its perch and tumbles to the floor.

She reclines on a sofa, putting her legs up.

Her husband walks past an open doorway in the background—naked or in his tightey-whities, while drying his hair with a towel. 

She stretches her legs over the arm of the couch and knocks over a lamp.
She reaches in the crease of the sofa and finds a two-thirds empty bag of chips. 

Lying on the sofa, she reads while eating a slice of pizza. 

She stares down at her feet and realizes she’s wearing mismatched slippers. 

Returning to Grace in her living room, the camera dollies gracefully back and away. 

And we cut to the Super.

Concert

We open tight on a band in the midst of a live performance. The camera pulls back, to reveal we’re actually watching this on a flat screen TV.
Continuing back, we look over the shoulder of Aaron (ethnic, a Millennial with an easy going attitude who is likable and interesting).

The concert playing on the TV in the background. 

Cutting to our dolly shot, we glide in toward Aaron as he speaks to camera.

AARON: This is my third “live” concert this month. 

He continues on, speaking with obvious irony—flat and totally deadpan.

AARON: The energy is insane. The crowd? Pumped. 

By the crowd, he means his Girlfriend who we cut to see stretched out on the sofa—fast asleep. 

She stretches a leg out, and he lifts his bowl of snacks to avoid her kicking it off his lap.

AARON: And that’s why I mask when I’m around anyone but her. And our mask-wearing means the faster we can scream at the top of our lungs with a crowd again.

We cut back to his girlfriend just as she lifts heavy eye-lids.

GIRLFRIEND: (muttering through a sleepy fog), Could you turn it down a bit, babe?

Aaron smiles—kind of sharing the humor of his situation with us, he turns slightly to address her.

AARON: Of course, sweetheart. (Back to us) So mask up. Not for me. For the music.

Transitioning to the Montage sequence we move through a quick sequence of handheld scenes while listening to Aaron’s VO.

VO: I want to pay 15 dollars for a domestic beer again. 

I want to use a urinal next to a stranger…

I want to pretend the band isn’t going to come out for the encore, but then they do…

I want our ears to ring for three days straight after a show.

Meanwhile we see:

Aaron and his girlfriend bored and texting while sitting on the sofa.

A moment of shared excitement, while watching a concert on TV. 

The two of them snuggling while obviously bored

Aaron lying down and resting his head and shoulders on his girlfriend’s lap. She’s clearly uncomfortable with it. 

Aaron leaning real close to the TV with the volume turned down while his girlfriend sleeps in the background.

More awkward watching — maybe with their dog barking incessantly next to the sofa.

Aaron with his arm wrapped around his sleeping girlfriend, trying to lift a drink up to his mouth without waking her. 

Aaron shoving a fistful of popcorn into his mouth while reclining and watching a concert on TV.

The two of them asleep again — her foot pressing into his face.

The two of them wearing old worn sweats dancing wildly behind the sofa while music blares from the TV. 

The two of them sitting upright—completely asleep on the sofa—both startled awake when pyrotechnics explode on the TV during a concert finale. 

Coming back from the montage, we leave Aaron with the camera dollying slowly away as he stares directly at us in expressionless silence.

Summing things up for now…

These are the thoughts I have right now. Let’s continue to collaborate on the way we can bring the moments scripted to life, while expanding on those with more ideas, so that we’ll have plenty of choices in the edit.

Thanks again. It’s a great project and and a much needed message.

All the best,