‘Canadian commercials tend to air on the politically correct side all the time and that means they are quite bland,’ says Aviator director Phil Brown, in defense of his spot for Fong’s Fresh Poultry.

Politically correct and boring this 60 definitely is not. Controversial it is.

Here’s the scenario: a tired bus driver on the late-night run opens his doors at a downtown stop. Against the scratchy, urban sound of hip hop music, a sneering skinhead, a pair of transvestites, a teenager decked out in vibrant lime green and a nerd in black-rimmed glasses and brown plaid make their way on board.

But the oddest passengers come in the form of two elderly Oriental women with big, friendly grins – and a live chicken in their arms.

‘No live animals,’ the bus driver mouths, but they don’t seem to understand. He repeats himself slowly to the grinning, yet confused owners.

After another try, the women nod. The driver sighs.A crack is heard.

The crowd of characters on the bus lean forward in amazement. Proudly holding up a now dead chicken the smiling women board, problem apparently solved.

‘I hope it turns a few heads, that’s basically what we wanted to do,’ says Brown, who is willing to make some waves and take the flack on this one.

The Scottish-born Brown was looking to bring the much more risque flavor of European commercials to the project. ‘I think the public are crying out for something different – just look at the theater lineups when they show the best of European advertising,’ he says.

He defends the spot by noting that no chickens were actually killed and no graphic shots of the neck-wringing are shown. As well, the concept was based on the real-life experience of Palmer Jarvis art director Bradley Wood when hopping on a bus in San Francisco. Brown and Wood worked on the script together and based it around the actual event.

Brown also incorporated production techniques from across the ocean. To move from the shot of the women boarding the bus to the bus driving away, Brown worked with post house Rainmaker and Coast Mountain editor Debbie Tregale on a snap-zoom morph, pioneered by a European director.

‘We joined the inside shot together with the outside shot so it looks like one continuous camera move from inside the bus to the outside,’ explains Brown. ‘You don’t see the join.’

Brown also went against the grain in terms of shooting style. ‘In humorous spots the camera tends to be punchy, moving a lot, with wacky angles and heavy zooms,’ he says. ‘I didn’t want that. It’s too cartoon-like. I wanted to shoot classical with a lot of wide angles.

Working with dop Les Erskins, second unit dop on Millennium, they lit the shoot with harsh fluorescents to highlight the gritty, urban feel, rather than soften the scene.

Instead of dialogue, a hip hop track composed by Patrick Dodds, a part-time teacher in his early 20s, covers the pictures. Ferocious Fish produced and mixed the sound.

The actors were also non-professionals. Brown sent a casting agent onto the streets of Vancouver to find unusual-looking people.

Whether positive or negative, the ‘Dead Chicken’ spot is sure to garner reaction when it airs this month in Vancouver. And that is exactly Brown’s aim.

‘The commercial production industry used to lead the way in trend-setting, now we just follow them,’ says the 10-year veteran of the commercial scene. ‘We have so much talent in Canada and a lot of the time it doesn’t get a chance to flourish.

‘Someone at some point needs to take a risk.’ CB