A set of Inferno-heavy trailers which screened at last month’s annual celluloid schmoozathon, the Toronto International Film Festival, generated almost as much buzz as the movies they accompanied. The trippy and engaging spots, reminding moviegoers to cast their ballots for the People’s Choice Awards, were directed by Floria Sigismondi, with Steve Lewis of Toronto’s Spin Productions lending a big hand in post.

According to Lisa Hemeon, Spin’s senior producer, it took a very concentrated team effort to put the openings together for client Benson & Hedges Film. The process started with Toronto director Sigismondi [repped for the job by The Revolver Film Company] and creative director Steve Mykolyn.

Sigismondi says the original idea was to create only one trailer because of the low budget, but by stretching a few dollars they were able to produce three.

‘People go to so many films, and over the course of the festival they get really kind of sick of the opening, to the point where they can mouth the words. We wanted something that was a little fresh every time you see it.’

The trailers depict what appears to be a party, where a man is walking down a hall looking at the different people inhabiting it. In the first trailer, they all look normal; by the third, they look anything but. The concept had its roots in a notion Sigismondi had been noodling around for a while about a vending machine dispensing human facial features – an idea the director originally hoped to explore as an art piece.

‘That’s where that was sort of born, and also from using the whole concept of choosing the winner of this festival,’ she says. ‘We were going to subtitle it ‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.’ It is basically about what beauty is to one person.’

To further this, as Sigismondi’s human vending machine breaks down and begins dispensing exaggerated features, an important character is introduced: the repairman who comes in to fix the machine also has exaggerated features.

‘What seems to be the problem?’ he asks.

‘When you see the repairman going to fix the machine he actually doesn’t see what is wrong with it, although the machine is broken and has deformed everybody’s features,’ says Sigismondi. ‘Because he looks that way he thinks everyone looks fine and beautiful. It is all about choosing what you think is good and not good, and what you think is beautiful and not beautiful.’

All three trailers were shot in a day, with Sigismondi at the helm and dop Chris Soos behind the camera. The footage was then taken to Michelle Czukar at Panic & Bob to be filed down.

Czukar and Sigismondi have a longstanding relationship, dating to the days when Czukar was an editor at Revolver and Sigismondi had just begun to direct music videos. The two have collaborated many times since.

The challenge for Czukar was to keep the action flowing, as corner-cutting would have been easily detected.

‘It was something that was plotted out,’ says Czukar. ‘You knew it was an image that had to go from one to another to another because the person is walking down that hallway, so wherever they were placed you had to pass by the other. You couldn’t really put one person in front of another one, because you would see them passing if you didn’t put them in the right order.’

The next and final major step in getting the trailers ready was dropping the edited footage on the desk of Spin Inferno artist and special effects designer Lewis. It was Lewis’ job to further distort the faces, especially in the second and third trailers, adding to what had already been done with prosthetics during the shoot.

The trailers were created through ICE Integrated Communications & Entertainment.

A second project coming out of the award-laden halls of Spin recently was a typography campaign headed up by New York-based designer/art director David Carson. Repped in Canada by Spin, Carson helmed four 10-second ads for Bank of Montreal’s Mutual Funds.

The creative for the spots came from Vickers & Benson’s David Innis, vp, senior writer, and Gavin Barrett, vp, senior art director, both of whom are admirers of Carson’s work and asked specifically that he be brought in for the job.

Each spot features a story about a person, as the scene zooms from word to word as part of a letter, conveying the person’s personality by focusing on specific words and phrases. The creatives at v&b hope viewers can relate to these people and see that b of m’s mutual funds are available and accessible to people with different backgrounds and interests.

Hemeon says Carson spent a lot of time at Spin with Inferno artist Craig Small putting the ads together.

Carson’s unique and unmistakable style translates very well into the advertising world, says Hameon. ‘Clients want to work specifically with him based on his design reputation. He is a significant designer. If they are looking for him, they are looking specifically for him.’

According to Hemeon, the two projects are a good indication of the work coming out of the shop lately and properly showcase the talent it represents.

‘Today’s dynamic and fertile creative industries are propelling new breeds of designers to innovate and express their ideas,’ she says. ‘It is always an honor to collaborate with these visionaries who are redefining our visual culture.’ *