Commercial on an Epic Scale

I was tipped off by a member of an internet group to which I belong
that the Hovis bakery company in the UK was about to premiere an epic commercial celebrating their 122nd year in business. It starts out with a boy buying a loaf of bread for his mother in 1886 at the local shop in what looks like a working-class neighborhood, and running home to his mum in 2008 through over 100 years of English history. It's 122 seconds long, or a second for every year (clever), and as commercials go, is more like a feature film in planning, organization and budget..it reportedly cost 15 million pounds (that's $27 MILLION dollars!) Having worked almost exclusively in commercials since 2005, I have never done anything on this scale in that genre, and don't imagine that many others have either, with so many background actors - the uniforms alone are a huge challenge. Happily, costume rental options in the UK are plentiful and the quality is superb...as you will see.

The boy is especially winning, and certainly earned every pound of his fee by all of the running he did. I liked his costume changes - subtle but nicely done.



Here's some more links and info:

Mirror.co.uk news...about this project.

Hovis website...superb quality copy

You Tube video about the making of this project.