Synopsis

An incredibly large job which took over my life for 6 months.

Even though it was one of the most stressful periods in my life the guys at 1861 (Pino, Roberto, Giorgio, Marine, Pepé) and 'h' films (Stella, Federica etc...) were such a pleasure to have worked with and met.

Luke and I had some wonderful hours out in Milan with them and to be honest don't think we'll ever work in such an idyllic production office ever again. Courtyard, sunshine, coffee, lunch....

It was such a big journey, not just ending up working with Dustin Hoffman but the rest of the crew out in Italy and here too. I'll try and upload the development work as well as it is an interesting process seeing how it all worked together and comparing it with the final films.

The chap who played Mr Lighthead, Nat Russo, is an incredibly good actor/mime artist and the chap who played the man with the moustache was insane and utterly dreadful, and scary too.

Dustin Hoffman was a real pleasure to meet and work with as was Valli O'Reilly and Daniel Erdman (at least I think it's Daniel) who were his face and hair entourage for the film he was over for in the UK (Last Chance Harvey I think).

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He had such a down to earth socialist work ethic and such a charming personality that the entire crew felt like a very together team.

We worked from about 9 in the morning till about 10:30 at night with pretty much no breaks, him speak Italian (which he was only told about three days prior to the shoot) and telling the most wonderful stories to the crew, bouying up everyone's moral. The first AD Antonio was brilliant as were Dustin's crew (make-up and hair) and the day was great great fun if not a little tiring!

There's a definite similarity in inception to the Coke Happiness Factory which was created about a year before, mostly as the Agency was desperately wanting exactly that and had written the campaign accordingly.

Of all of the elements I feel that re-inforced this which was my responsibility were the two stripey bumble bees which keep the island afloat and I wish we'd gone for an enormous butterfly, I'd not thought there were things like that in the Happiness Factory ad but apparently there are some large balloon type people. Apologies to Psyop if they felt it was too close.

All in all I think that it's got an origination which is distinctly Sky and am happy about the finished thing.

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Below:- 

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15" teaser
30" 'Christmas Department' & 15" Christmas package
30" 'Time Department'

3x10" additionals

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