Many Playback commercial industry readers will surely recall How to Get Ahead in Advertising, a 1989 film from Britain. Tim Hamilton seems to have figured out ‘how’ and he doesn’t even have a talking boil to contend with (at least, not that we know of).

The Avion Films director has recently caused a stir with his satirical vision of the biz in a film he made called Truth in Advertising. It was created through Avion specifically for the Marketing Awards and according to sources, his 12-minute, darkly comedic look at the ad business was the undisputed highlight of the entire show.

The idea behind the piece was to follow a commercial campaign through various meetings with ad execs and production company representatives in a docudrama style. It takes viewers through an ad campaign in four parts: the Briefing, the Agency Presentation, the Director’s Pitch and the Rough Cut Screening. The film ends with the creative team for the campaign accepting a Marketing Award. Each scene has an obscenity-to-minute-ratio comparable to the South Park feature from last summer, including some Olympic-level creative curse-word combos. You are fearful to laugh, despite your instincts, lest you should miss some of the rapid-fire dialogue.

‘The gag was that the ad people were actually saying what was really on their minds or the truth of the situation – rather than what they would normally be saying in those meetings,’ says director Hamilton. ‘Basically it is a satire of the things that go wrong in advertising.’

Avion’s Michael Schwartz says the film was created as part of a deal the company made with the Marketing Awards. He says the ball started rolling when the award show’s committee approached Avion about being a sponsor.

‘We agreed to do it on the condition that we could do our own presentation,’ says Schwartz. ‘I guess at one point they were playing it really cautious because they were concerned about what we were doing. You have to give them credit for backing off and letting us go for it. They took a chance’ which could have gone either way.

The fears of those at the Marketing Awards about what Avion was cooking up were extinguished as soon as the film screened at the show. Schwartz says the reaction was instantaneous.

‘The film turned out to be the hottest thing at the entire show,’ he says. ‘We must have gotten at least 100 calls in the first week of people looking to get copies of it.’ (Schwartz and Hamilton are reluctant to distribute copies for a variety of reasons, however.)

Hamilton says shooting the 12-minute project only took a day, crediting dop Russ Goozee with keeping the shoot moving.

The film was written by Hamilton and Dave Chiavegato through a series of faxes and e-mails whereby the two writers sent rough dialogue ideas back and forth. Hamilton says the two were very careful not to make the characters into caricatures of people they had met in the ad industry. However, as careful as they were, there were apparently still some sensitive types who felt a character in the film resembled them a bit too much.

‘I think there were a few instances of that,’ admits Hamilton. ‘Nobody was used specifically as a model – it wasn’t about sniping at people. It was about general trends and more about the problems in the system than anything else. We didn’t want to get bitchy about it. That wasn’t what it was about and I don’t think that sort of thing is funny, anyway.’

There were playful shots taken at agency account groups, clients and even production companies. He says the director depicted in the film is quite possibly ‘the most odious character.’ However, very few people took offense (or at least were vocal about it).

‘The people that were at the awards all laughed their heads off and thought it was great,’ says Hamilton. ‘In fact, I think a lot of them wanted copies of it because they thought they could use it as an educational tool to show their people what not to do.’

A bigger story that has developed since the initial screening of the film at the Marketing Awards is the direction Tim Hamilton’s career has taken. According to Schwartz, Hamilton has just shot a campaign for Lexus, is bidding on a job from Paris and recently signed a deal for u.s. representation with Zooma Zooma in New York.

‘I think their interest in him had a lot to do with seeing this film,’ says Schwartz.

Hamilton, who is undoubtedly pleased with the attention his 12-minute film has brought him, says he is not entirely surprised by it.

‘As we started writing it, we realized we were on the right track with it, if we could get it done and not be censored,’ he says. ‘We always thought we would be [censored] at some point because it is pretty outrageous. I expected someone to push back, but no-one ever did.’