In This Report

BEHIND THE SCENES WITH TOP SPOTS WINNERS:

Direction/cinematography B3

Editing B4, B6

Art Direction B7

Animation B8

Sound B10, B11

Performance B12

THE YEAR IN SPOTS SURVEY:

Canadian commercial production houses B14

Canadian animation houses B20

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If you’re Canadian and any kind of a hockey fan chances are that you have, at some point, come across the upbeat, high-spirited tune which resonates from the background of Ammirati Puris Lintas’ winning spot for Labatt’s Blue.

‘Table Top,’ directed by Imported Artists’ Richard D’Alessio and part of the ‘It’s Your Call’ campaign, has a young man ‘leap over the boards’ to find himself controlling the puck, carving his away around the surface in a larger-than-life tabletop hockey game to the background sounds of Gary Glitter’s famous sports anthem, Rock’n’Roll Part ii.

Writer Brad Riddock and creative director Doug Robinson came up with the concept late one night at the office while playing around with ideas for the Labatt campaign. Although hockey-themed commercials are traditionally Molson’s domain, the power and impact the sport has over so many Canadians was something the two creatives could not ignore.

With the spirited tune already engraved in their minds, Robinson and Riddock took their idea very early in the process to Steve MacKinnon of Rosnick MacKinnon. While they considered original, more dramatic scores, the consensus was that this song is so much a part of the hockey culture and mind set it was the only way to go.

The goal musically was to find something that would emotionally connect consumers and hold the concept together while capturing the rush of the game. The tune ‘adds an insight and deeper understanding of the emotion of playing hockey and winning. It plays a big part in the communication of the spot,’ says Robinson.

According to MacKinnon, who rerecorded the music and customized it to fit the spot, ‘Table Top’ is more an example of sound design than a musically driven spot. ‘Our task was to use the music to create a lot of the impact and sort of pump up the reality of the situation,’ he says.

Added to the background sounds of the catchy tune, an extensive foley session with Mike Rosnick involved metal type impacts, various sound sources off the computer and other unconventional sound sources such as a pair of skates scraping over a huge block of ice, support the fast-paced tabletop sports action.