‘Tis the season for a little extra cheer, with many of us imbibing too many cocktails to get into the festive spirit or loosen up at that office party or family function. Sadly, ’tis also the season of increased alcohol-related car accidents.

To help create awareness of the dangers of drinking and driving, Mothers Against Drunk Driving has several psas on air across Canada, including a new one from Industry Films director Steve ‘Shack’ Shackleton.

What started out as a spec spot for his Industry reel has turned into a widely airing m.a.d.d. psa, marking Shack’s commercial directorial debut.

‘In my wildest dreams I was hoping that it would actually make it to air, and it did,’ says Shackleton of his directorial debut. ‘I just wanted to get it done and to have a decent spot for my reel. I didn’t really think it would actually air.’

Shack wrote the psa with m.a.d.d. member Phyllis Ritting. The spot depicts two couples having dinner at a restaurant. One of the men has had too much to drink but convinces his friends that he is still okay to drive home. As he is about to exit the restaurant, the place goes dark and he has a gun in his hand, firing shots toward the patrons. He tosses the weapon into the air only to catch it again as a set of car keys.

Shackleton presented the idea to Tina Petridas when she was still with Radke Films and the two of them kept the potential ad quiet. When Petridas started Industry, she gave Shackleton the go-ahead to make the psa as a spec spot and financed the shoot. The intention was to take the finished spot to Saatchi & Saatchi, which does the creative for m.a.d.d., to see if the agency was interested in it.

The spot was shot in June, on a small budget, in 12 hours, says Shack. Having been on several crews over the span of nearly a decade, he was impressed that so many of his colleagues offered to help him, including dop Mike Andringa.

‘It was amazing,’ says Shackleton. ‘The crew members that we had were crew members you can’t even get on a paid day, let alone on a Sunday in June for free.’

The actors also volunteered their time.

For the location, Shack had indicated in his notes that he wanted to shoot in a restaurant like Toronto’s Lolita’s Lust, so what better place to use than Lolita’s Lust? The restaurant’s owners gave Shack and his commercial cohorts the run of the noshery for the shoot.

‘It was just one of those perfect days and we finished on time and on budget,’ says Shackleton.

As promised, Petridas presented the spot to producer Anna Tricinci at Saatchi. The agency has been producing advertising for m.a.d.d. for, she estimates, six or seven years on a pro bono account. Tricinci then took it to m.a.d.d., which was very impressed with the spot. Tricinci says she shared m.a.d.d.’s enthusiasm.

‘We thought the psa hit home and sent a great message out there,’ says Tricinci. ‘We thought it was perfect for the Christmas season and to run the whole year round. It’s not a seasonal type of ad.’

Tricinci says ‘Restaurant’ is undoubtedly the type of ad that could be a mainstay on several television stations, comparing it to the extremely strong and poignant ‘Glasses’ psa made through Saatchi Singapore (in which several glasses present themselves one at a time in front of a busy highway, blurring the highway a little more as each glass is set down).

However, you cannot please all the people all of the time. Since ‘Restaurant’ began airing, Tricinci says some gun owners have objected to the ad, saying it presents gun owners in a negative way.

‘That is not at all what it is saying,’ she says. ‘If they really look at the spot, it is an analogy – keys in the hands of a drunk driver can be as lethal as a gun. That’s all it is saying. It’s powerful and in the end it has a great message. It is ultimately for a good cause.’

Ultimately, a bit of controversy can prove useful in the end, she admits.

‘We’ve gotten quite a few e-mails and it hasn’t been running very long,’ says Tricinci. ‘It means people are seeing it, and that’s good, because with a psa you never really know when it is going to run, it’s at the discretion of the station.’

Controversy or not, m.a.d.d. likes the spot and has indicated to Tricinci that it has no intentions of pulling the ad at this time. To further that, when ‘Restaurant’ was shown at a m.a.d.d. convention, sources say it received a standing ovation.

As for Shack, his little spec spot is a source of pride. ‘I’ve been a crew member for nine years and I have worked on many a spec spot, but I’ve never worked on one that has ever made it to air,’ he says.

Tricinci says the m.a.d.d. spot says a lot about Shackleton. ‘He could have done a spec spot for anything, but to choose to do it for a pro bono account I think is really commendable.’

Dustin Dinoff