You can’t say PANA, organizer of the 21st Philippine Advertising Congress, wasn’t ambitious. On top of triple tracks of sessions and adding marketing effectiveness to the Araw Awards, they’ve summoned the magical storytelling skills of four top directors to create a series of TV and web spots, dramatizing the theme of perspectives: “Ano sa Tingin Mo?”
Each director—Henry Frejas, Sid Maderazo, Carlo Directo and AF Benaza—takes on the perspective of a single character in a mysterious magic act. Frejas sets the tone with the launch ad, the story of the Magician; Maderazo takes another view: the Assistant’s; Directo tells the tale from below, through the Stagehand’s perspective; and AF Benaza delivers the final cliffhanger through the eyes of the volunteer’s Date.
At the magic-themed launch at the Ayala Museum, DDB Executive Creative Director Teeny Gonzales said that she had four different creative teams and their four directors work with blinders—no one knew what was happening on anything other than their own storyboard.
Nevertheless, the four directors still felt that pressure of competition. Frejas and Benaza were particularly nervous, because they had to start and end the series. Directo, the newest in the group, was envied for his assignment, allegedly the one with most creative potential. Particularly unique to this experience, aside from sharing the same cast, crew and set, was creating stories that refuse to reveal the ending.
For that, viewers will have to attend the Ad Con’s opening ceremony for the last piece of the puzzle.
Beginning August 5, the 21st Ad Con airs its spots on TV and presents its 3-minute webfilms at www.adcon.com.ph. Once viewers see all four perspectives, then the speculation begins:
Whodunnit?
Howdunnit?
And most of all, whodeservestheaward?
