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INTRO
This film celebrates the idea of being, unique, different, extraordinary... These are some of the qualities immediately associated with Drambuie, and qualities that the film will convey. We are going to make a truly surreal piece, something absolutely special, never seen before. We will set our imaginations free, and engage the audiences in a visual feast. The viewers will be sent on a journey, that starts in a bar with the most unusual collection of characters and moves through a dreamlike DalĂ-esque landscape before returning to the bar again, with the bottle of Drambuie and its smooth, golden whiskey liqueur a continuous presence against the stylized black and white of the surreal setting.
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I imagine this film as a clever combination of art direction and postproduction, seamlessly combined to create an unconventional world that clearly functions by its own rules. Despite the disparity of characters and elements involved, everything will come together in the flavour of the Drambuie world.
The images will be carefully composed, each of them having a painterly quality, and charged with a symbolism that will activate the audience’s imagination.
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I want to play with visual paradoxes, creating spaces with impossible perspectives and mind-bending scales and defying the I would like to give a sense of playfulness to the whole film conventions of logic and alongside its mysterious qualities. It should propose a visual game to the viewers, inviting them to observe it and watch it again in order to discover new details and hidden meanings within the film.
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SCRIPT
We start with a wide angle shot establishing our location in an unfamiliar space. We are in a bar at night, all in black and white except a few glowing golden spots on some of the tables and the bar. There is a collection of characters spread out by the bar and at the surrounding tables. The scene is dimly lit, masking some of the strangeness of the bar’s clientele. However, it is immediately apparent that there is something very odd about the place… The camera tracks in towards the bar as the barman emerges out of the shadows that conceal his face and we get surprised as we see that he has a strange surreal appearance. His gaze holds our attention, making us feel that we are customers ourselves. Aside from his unusual physical
appearance (more of this later) his manners and style are those of a waiter who has years of experience in an exclusive members club. There is a bottle of Drambuie by the bar, its golden liquid glowing against the monotone surroundings, and next to it, a glass stands ready with fresh ice cubes. It was clearly waiting for us as the barman tells us: “I knew you would come”
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As we hear these words, we cut away into different areas of the bar. Now we fully realize the types of regulars who feel at home in this place. An invisible man with a floating hat. Another man sitting in front of a table upon which lies a stone. Some of the characters will look at us, letting us feel that we are present, that this is our own point of view as we explore the place. We go back to a medium close up of the barman and he offers us, with a smooth and well mannered tone: “A taste of the extraordinary...” We cut to a close up of the Drambuie bottle. As we do this we suddenly find that it is no longer on the surface of the bar, but is instead placed in a vast landscape that stretches out until it reaches the horizon. The landscape is flat and almost featureless except for the hypnotic repetition of the pattern of the floor, and the presence of a figure and a wall. We open out into a wider shot and now we can see the whole bottle, the shape of its shadow cast across a high white wall which cuts diagonally into the landscape. It is a truly surreal landscape, in the tradition of Dalí and Yves Tanguy, with a monochrome colour scheme not unlike that of the bar. The barman is standing next to the bottle, now twice his size. He walks towards the bottle’s shadow where it touches the wall, and pushes it, revealing that a door in the shape of the shadow. He invites us to follow him through. 6
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At this, a gigantic hand appears from above and takes the bottle of Drambuie. The movement of the hand grabbing the bottle is continued in a wider shot, this time back into the bar where the barman holds the Drambuie bottle with one hand. With the expertise of someone who has been doing this job for a long time, he takes the glass with ice and lifts it above his head, the Drambuie pouring upwards from the bottle to fill the glass. As the pouring takes place we follow a series of cuts into the Dalí-esque landscape, where a strong wind is blowing and the clouds are dashing across the sky in front of the bright full moon, projecting dramatic shadows onto the zig-zag pattern of the flooring. At this point we see close-ups of various surreal characters enigmaticaly positioned within the weird landscape. I’m thinking of things like a glass of Drambuie floating in front of someone’s head – a nod to Magritte’s painting of the floating apple –, a person leaning over a window frame that is not supported by anything, and we cannot see the persons body outside of the frame, the upper body of someone on top of a table, two people with cloths wrapped around their faces facing each other. In general, people in strange poses, looking backwards, frozen, holding objects, or showing enigmatic body language.
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We do a quick cut to a detail of the pouring in the upside-down glass. We then cut back to the Dali landscape and we see three different surreal characters alternately saying the words ... “Spices.” “Heather honey.” “Aged scotch whiskey.” Cut to the liquid filling the glass. We cut back to three men of different sizes but with identical suits, standing frozen in a tableau, all pointing in different directions. They speak one after the other : “Dram” “Boo” “Eeee” We see the glass for the last time as it is finally filled. The image wipes to black with the shape of two eyelids closing.
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CHARACTERS
This is one of the key elements of this surreal piece. Here I would like to feature both real people doing unusual things and other characters who are more surreal in appearance. I see the barman as an old school one, someone who has been doing his job for a long time and has the genteel manners and discretion of a person used to serving exclusive clientele. As for his physical appearance, I would like to explore a few different options, ranging from a facially modified character (with multiple eyes and/or mouths) to simpler alternatives using purely styling and unusual casting. Whichever option we go with, I would suggest we do a test in Flame to finesse it before the shoot. Besides the characters mentioned in the script I would like to add a few more who we only see as extras or in the background: someone with an object head like a clock or a dollhouse, a female singer performing in a corner with a really odd hairstyle, a few people frozen in odd postures...
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The characters in the landscape will be equally unusual. I like the idea of these people having strange facial expressions, reminiscent of silent films, especially German expressionism. I see the group of three men identically dress as completely static and only moving their head to look at the camera and speak, each having an extended arm pointing in a different direction - it will make an interesting and graphic composition. The other characters in the landscape will all have a certain stillness as well, which will be suddenly altered to say their words. The body language of all the characters in general will become an important element. I want to play with unusual postures, movements and facial expressions to add to the unusual atmosphere of the film.
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STYLING
I imagine the wardrobes of these characters as being timeless. It should be smart with a certain classical elegance, but with a twist adding into the eccentricity of the general style. The world of Drambuie should be perceived as an elegant and classy one. The barman will also follow these guidelines, wearing a bow tie and the classical suit of a bartender of a classy members’ club. The hairstyles will also play an important role, some of the characters having unusual ones like the references attached.
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ART DIRECTION
The sets will be full of symbols and hidden meanings. We will fill them with details that won’t be necessarily perceived at first glance, but will require several viewings to be noticed, inviting the audience to participate in a visual game. We will also play with perspectives and scale, making ‘impossible images’ that somehow defy laws of physics deceive our eyes. This could be something extreme, such as distorting the lines of the walls and the floor like in The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari, or it could also be done in a subtle way, just tilting a table, or making the sides of the frame of the painting uneven. The bar will feel like a surreal member’s club with a long bar and a few dimly lit tables similar to the bars of film noir. There will also be numerous little details on the tables, the bar, walls: A key rotating on a table, a large egg covered in dots, a plate with a feather. These are just few examples that will be expanded as we get into production. In the landscape we will have larger objects, some of them in the distance. I imagine things like a big monolith with a single blinking eye, geometrical shapes, everyday objects turned into gigantic structures, a door frame with the door open to show a landscape behind... All of these elements will be from the world of dreams, and charged with a strong symbolism, allowing viewers to make their own associations.
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Below you can see different powerful and symbolic images that can easily be achieved in camera. Taking characters and objects out of their familiar environments and bringing them together in a reconfigured context is what dreams do and what most of surrealism is about and that is going to be our primary aim in this film.
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CINEMATOGRAPHY
We will shoot colour and then will switch everything to black and white except the bottle, its reflection and the glass with Drambuie in it. I like the idea of playing with light and shadow in the bar, using a number of small light sources rather than a few main ones. The lighting will resemble that of Orson Welles and German expressionist films, creating dramatic shadows and graphic compositions.
The landscape will also have an expressionist style of lighting, projecting long shadows onto the wall. This time though, we will also have a main light source making the whole scene look as if it has been lit by a strange moonlight. The final look will be very filmic, avoiding any kind of digital crispiness.
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POST PRODUCTION We will have to use a wide variety of postproduction techniques in order to create our extraordinary world. All of this will be done in an absolutely seamless and photographic way, giving the film an analogue feel and avoiding anything looking too obviously digital or computer generated. We are going to achieve as much as we can in camera and through compositing plates that we will shoot rather than creating CG elements. This way we will maintain the tangible and physical feel of all the elements. The liquid pouring upwards will be done also blending a few plates together. We will shoot a few different plates – one with the barman doing the movement with the glass and the bottle, another one with the bottle upside down pouring the liquid and one more of the glass – and then we will blend them all together, obtaining a totally realistic pouring shot, using the actual Drambuie rather than a CG liquid. To create the landscape we will build a set in a studio or an indoor space where we can use the black and white zigzag flooring. The floor will be expanded in postproduction in order to give it the effect of an almost infinite expanse. All the landscape characters will be shot on that floor with a green screen as a background. The sky will be added later, choosing it from a stock footage archive and tweaking it to make the clouds move as we want them, to alter the colours and to change the size of the moon.
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PRODUCT
Despite not having a closing packshot, the shot where we make the transition from the bar to the landscape will work as a product shot. These shot will be carefully lit and composed to make sure that the Drambuie bottle is the focal point of these images, and looks stunning. The drink will also be present among the characters in the bar, such as the glass floating above the table or the invisible man proposing a toast, and in a more subtle way we will also notice it as tiny golden flecks around different areas of the bar.
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EDITING AND SOUND DESIGN The rhythm of the film will be as unusual as the idea itself, making sudden and unexpected cuts and breaking the overall pace at times to surprise the audience. We can try to do subtle jump cuts within the shots, or add quick inserts of three frames shots within longer ones. At the final section where we intercut the pouring shot with the characters saying the different ingredients, I think we should mix up how we hear the words. Maybe some of the words sounds as if they are embedded into the ambient sound design that pervades the eerie landscape. Almost like some kind of omniscient voice that comes from above. The Last Year in Marienbad reference at the end of the treatment is a good example of this. The soundtrack of this film will be composed from multiple layers of sound effects, music and ambient tones. It will be constantly shifting and changing, sometimes in abrupt cuts and other times in a more gradual way. I like the idea of adding fading melodies as if they emanate from an old record player, especially in the bar scene. We can potentially do something interesting with a female singer and cut to her as she sings some incomprehensible words at the bar. Something else we can play with is the way in which the words and sounds are said in the closing scene. It could be interesting to do something in the vein of the reference from Twin Peaks where the characters say the words backwards.
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TONE
“I do no t un de rs
ask for grilled lobste , w h en I y h w r in d a re n ta staura
lí r Da o d va - Sal ” . e n ho d telep e k o o c nt, I’m never ser ved a
This commercial will doubtless have a very unique tone. Besides its mysterious vibe, it will be playful, inviting the viewers to step into this out-of-the-ordinary world, making the characters and the environment feel amusing rather than disturbing. It’s important that this doesn’t come across as some hallucinatory nightmare; rather it is played out with a bit of a knowing wink, inviting our cultured viewer to enjoy spotting the surrealist references and feel part of the experience. The camera will at times feel subjective, like an individual point of view into this enigmatic world, where the rules of logic apply in a different way, making it an exotic, strange and attractive place. Find here some video references : http://clients.hsilondon.co.uk/drambuie_links/
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These are my initial thoughts on this film. None of them are set in stoneI expect the collaboration process as our imaginations come together to offer more unusual and brilliant ideas. This is a great project. I am very familiar with the world of surrealism, it’s been one of my passions from an early age, so it is very exciting to have an opportunity to create a uniquely original commercial, something that will immediately stand out and prove to be a truly memorable and iconic piece of advertising.
Chino MOYA
Ceci n'est pas la fin