19th May 2012
Award Winning Parallel Lines Ad Campaign Stretches Into 3D
3rd August 2010
The next instalment in Parallel Lines, an award-winning series of film shorts promoting Philips' cinema-size flat-screen TVs, is to be shot in 3D. Set in an early 20th-century fun fair and called Circus, it will be the sixth Parallel Lines film from ad agency DDB London and international production house RSA (Ridley Scott Associates). It will be released online and shown in consumer-electronics stores in September. Circus's director is RSA's Barney Cokeliss, whose credits include commercials for Opel, the NHS, and Typhoo Tea. Its launch coincides with Philips' new line of 3D TVs.
A huge demand is predicted for 3D-TV sets thanks to the popularity of Avatar, James Cameron's groundbreaking 3D Hollywood blockbuster. Like the previous five Parallel Films, shot by RSA's Jake Scott, Hi-Sim, Carl Erik Rinsch, Johnny Hardstaff and Greg Fay, Circus will use the same six lines of dialogue. But each director is free to choose the film's genre, storyline and format.
For example, The Gift, a short suspense thriller which won this year's Cannes Lions Grand Prix for Film Craft, was produced in a mixture of live action and CGI. The five films have been watched more than 5 million times on YouTube and Philips' website. Philips, once famous only for its light bulbs, has been praised for pushing the boundaries of filmmaking by commissioning revolutionary marketing campaigns. Carousel, Philips' online commercial by agency Tribal DDB Amsterdam and production company Stink Digital, clinched last year's Cannes Lions Grand Prix.
Photography by Judah Passow - Represented by Gallery 1839 London