Leo Burnett has put a twist on the standard movie trailer in a pro bono campaign for a charity that uses filmmaking to deter inner-city youth from a life of violence.
The 55-second spot for the Toronto-based City Life Film Project began appearing among actual movie trailers in Toronto theatres just prior to Christmas. It begins as a standard ad for a fictional movie called “The Downfall Movie,” complete with a fake studio name and dramatic music, only to come to an abrupt end seconds later.
A few seconds after the screen turns white, the stark message “this movie was never made” appears on screen, followed by the words “the young man who would have made it was struck and killed by a stray bullet outside his apartment.”
The trailer directs viewers to the City Life website where they can view actual movies chronicling the lives of three inner-city youths from Toronto.
The trailer component is supported by radio ads and wild postings presented as movie posters. Each of the three executions is presented in black and white with a single red element, such as a car riddled with bullet holes or a pool of blood underneath a man bound to a chair.
The posters direct people to TheDownfallMovie.com, and also feature a QR code enabling people to view the fake trailer on their mobile device.
The trailer will also soon appear on DVD copies of select movies.
“The idea [behind the creative concept] was how do you make people care about this charity,” said Stephen Stahl, a copywriter with Leo Burnett. “What if the next great movie never got made because the filmmaker never escaped his surroundings?”
“It’s really tough with pro bono work because there have been so many powerful campaigns,” added art director Mike Cook. “Just showing kids on streets seemed like a cliché and a normal way to go. We really wanted to take advantage of the uniqueness of this charity–its not just helping disadvantaged youth, it’s helping them in a very specific way.”
The City Life Film Project is the brainchild of Calum deHartog, a member of a special unit within the Toronto Police Service’s Emergency Task Force that specializes in drugs and gangs. Each year, the project selects a group of inner-city youth to work with industry professionals to create a movie that brings their story to life.
