What starts off looking like a great cello solo turns out to be an anti-climactic promo for a 25-cent hamburger.

‘Busker,’ a New York Festivals Gold-winning spot for McDonald’s out of Cossette, Montreal, features a young cellist who looks to be ready for a full day of playing. He unpacks his instrument, warms up, and with one squeak of the bow across the strings earns himself a quarter and back goes the instrument into the case.

The initial creative called for a guitar player since the guitar is the instrument of choice for most buskers. But in an effort to have the musician not look too poor, the creative team went with a cello, giving him music student appeal.

‘Busker’ was directed and lensed by Christian Duguay, repped by La Fabrique D’Image. The spot was shot in Montreal’s bright and spacious Windsor train station about a year ago and is running in the Quebec and New York markets. Cossette’s Hugues Choquette was the writer and Andre Mantha was art director.

Mantha, who has been working on McDonald’s for eight years, says the spot was a hit due to its simplicity: ‘Simple ideas are the best and they always work for me,’ he says.

Prior to shooting ‘Busker,’ Duguay was dop on another Golden Arches spot from the same creative team. Impressed with his work and creative input, when it came time for this job Mantha and Choquette decided to put Duguay in the director’s chair as well.

Duguay, who does mostly feature work these days, is currently in Prague, Czechoslovakia, shooting Joan of Arc, a $25-million Alliance Atlantis miniseries for cbc/cbs.