Show Death Who’s Boss
Savvy Productions collaborated with the ad agency, Penna Powers, to create a series of commercials aimed at influencing individuals in Utah to prioritize seatbelt use and refrain from impaired driving. The mission was to bring a larger-than-life Grim Reaper to life, delivering a serious message with a touch of humor.
The Compelling Event
The State of Utah has seen an upward trend in fatalities due to impaired drivers. With 12% of Utahns not wearing seatbelts and a concerning trend of overconfident drivers making the dangerous decision to drive impaired, the Utah Department of Public Safety challenged Penna Powers to create a compelling concept. Savvy Productions joined the project to breathe life into this vision with a series of TV commercials.
Services Rendered
Savvy Productions provided a comprehensive range of services, including costume design and creation, filming, animation, and meticulous editing, visual effects and sound design.
Transforming Serious Messages into Emmy-Winning Comedic Gold
To achieve the desired impact, Savvy Productions faced unique challenges, such as crafting a larger-than-life Grim Reaper costume with oversized boney fingers. Death needed boney fingers that were three times bigger than human digits that could break things and taunt people in humorous ways.
Once a costume and props were built we had to do a tremendous amount of pre production to figure out locations and how to rig props so they would explode properly without injuring anyone. In order to not damage our functioning costume hands, we created a skeleton fist out steel which worked perfectly for those “smashing” shots! Savvy Productions is always up for the task of creating something unique. The end result was a series of spots that got a lot of positive attention.
Once all of the planning was completed Savvy filmed and edited the commercials. Due to the nature of having Death as a character the visual effects and motion graphics were very demanding for these funny commercials.
To help the audience best relate to the Grim Reaper the spots had a tone that was engaging and humorous. The ads still emphasized the wisdom of avoiding driving while impaired and buckling up in a non threatening way.
The Impact
The Grim Reaper commercials had a big impact on Utah and beyond. The campaign won a prestigious Emmy Award. In addition to that accolade, the commercials won multiple American Advertising Awards.
Let us know how we can use our video expertise to help your business.
Contact us for a free quote for your project.