BBH on Creating a Campaign for CRY

Yesterday, assistant producer David Lynch, of BBH London, attended a campaign launch at the House of Commons. It wasn’t for a big brand or to promote the latest product on the market, but instead was to meet with sufferers and the families of victims of undiagnosed heart conditions.

Winning a £10k charitable grant a year ago to produce his own idea to warn of the dangers of not getting your heart tested, for charity Cardiac Risk in the Young (CRY), Lynch’s resulting spot was made with unrelenting commitment and a lot of industry favours. Below, he tells us exactly what it took to made his vision a reality and who else he managed to get involved.

Why did you choose rugby to communicate the message for the charity?

To be honest, rugby is my favourite sport to watch and I thought it best that I stick to what I know. I felt if we got the right director we could make a gritty rugby ad and that was something I hadn't seen before.

After you won the grant, what were the next steps in putting your idea into action?

I needed to get a good team to work on it with me; once I had that I felt things would fall into place. My thought process at this stage was to go for the best in every field and when they would ultimately say no I would work my way down the pecking order. To my surprise nobody said no.

I approached one of the best creative director teams at BBH, Nick Kidney and Kevin Stark. They agreed to help and their guidance throughout was invaluable. The script was sent to Stephen Brierley at Park Pictures. He came back saying he had recently signed AG Rojas and that he thought he would be great for it. He was right. AG has the rare ability to shoot a beautiful sports film while also allowing a strong narrative to shine through and we all feel he used this to great effect in our ad. From there, AG and Park recruited Matthias Rudh as our director of photography, Eddie McClements, as our sports choreographer and Dominic Leung at Trim as our editor.

I couldn't have asked for a more talented group of people and I will be eternally grateful that they didn't ask for a fee. Once the film was shot the £10,000 was no more so I needed to ask for donated work with post production, sound design and music. Steve Lane at Grand Central Recording studio lifted the film so much with his sound design; I see it as being the backbone of the ad. Brad Wood was great with the post production. Lastly, I had worked with Pete Raeburn on Audi earlier in the year but never actually met him. I decided to send him the offline edit and see if he would be willing to help. I didn’t expect a reply but by the next morning he did, and said he would love to be a part of it.

It wasn't your average project in that we needed everything for free; this included wardrobe, players, location etc... It was a massive effort from everyone and so many people gave so much.

Where did you find the lead actor?

Our lead actor's name is Jasper Levine. AG found him. In the recall session there were a lot of guys that were built like strong rugby players. Jasper had a certain vulnerability we were looking for and felt he worked well with our 'grass roots' visual look and feel. I've since seen him in Edgar Wright's World's End and a McDonald’s ad. He is a very talented guy and definitely one to watch out for in the future.

Collaboration was clearly key to the production’s success. How important do you think industry relationships are in making something like this possible?

Industry relationships were vital to this film. Without them I would have been doing it all myself and it would have been terrible! I think one of the best things about working in advertising production is the contacts you make. It's not just a matter of ‘I'll do you a favour and you do one for me down the line’, you can create genuine friendships. Sometimes working with big brands can get on top of you and I think everyone left this project with a nice feeling that this could genuinely make a difference.

Have you had to juggle the job with your full time responsibilities at the agency?

I did have to do some juggling, balancing BBH client work and this personal CRY campaign. There were some late nights but BBH’s head of production, Davud Karbassioun, and deputy head of production, Charlie Gatsky, were great. When it came to the pre-production week and shoot my workload was lightened to accommodate this. After that stressful period it calmed down. The reason for this was we always had to work around people's diaries. It made the back end of the job last longer than a usual production but meant it didn’t get in the way of BBH client work much at all.

Aside from what the spot means, how has the experience helped your progress and learning as a producer?

It's helped me an incredible amount. Being an assistant producer it was a big challenge. I had help along the way which I really appreciated. It hit me first when I was awarded the money I thought to myself, ‘oh God, this is actually happening, what am I going to do', but I just took it one thing at a time and tried not to freak out by thinking of the bigger picture too much. I definitely feel I have matured and my production skills have improved. Having to take the lead when I wasn't quite ready is scary but also a great learning experience.

And the film had a great platform at its launch. What do you hope viewers take away from the piece?

The message is delivered in a pretty shocking way and I hope that the reality hits home with the viewer. I would like people to realise that this happens more than most people think. It does not take a lot to get your heart tested. At the ad's launch I met so many parents who have lost children. They think the film is a great thing and the hard-hitting nature of it is necessary. They feel if they had known about this before the tragedy occurred their child would still be with them.