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Two besuited men fighting in a restaurant. Women jumping through plate glass windows, from helicopters and out of buildings. A driver blowing up a stack of TVs within the desert together with his automotive. These are only among the stunts that were celebrated on Sunday (March 2), not on the 97th Academy Awards, but in the course of the event’s business breaks.
The high-octane motion appeared as a part of an ambitious, six-spot ad stunt that featured Samsung, Carnival Cruise Line, Kiehl’s, L’Oréal Paris and ad-tech firm Mntn. A collaboration between Disney Advertising, Kimmelot and Maximum Effort, the campaign served as an ode to stunt employees and a Los Angeles film community that continues to be grappling with the aftermath of this 12 months’s wildfires.
“The entire project was a love letter to the stunt community,” said Chris Denison, who served as stunt coordinator for the spots. “Quite a lot of stunt work is behind the scenes, so to have something that was dedicated to the craft and [to be] in a position to shine a lightweight on on the precise performers was really incredibly special for us.”
ArtClass Content, Empire Stunts, More Media and Really Original provided an assist on the campaign running on Disney-owned ABC. More than 150 crew members, including over 75 stunt performers, from two Los Angeles-based production firms worked on five of the six spots, which were filmed in LA after the recent wildfires. The Carnival Cruise spot was filmed on location within the Dominican Republic, with helicopter jumps accomplished practically without blue screens.
Storytelling through stunts
The first step within the means of creating the stunt-centric ads involved connecting stunt types to specific brands and their value propositions. The idea was to not overload viewers on the identical stunts and storylines. Six fight scenes in a row wouldn’t be compelling, for instance.
“The brands that we had are available in are all very high-horsepower brands with really compelling products and it was fun to think concerning the specific components of stunts and the way we could apply those to every brand and in a fun way,” Denison said.
The Samsung spots key in on two artificial intelligence-powered features of the corporate’s Galaxy S25 series smartphones, using the personalized Now Brief feature for a “John Wick”-type fight scene and the Audio Eraser feature to focus on the way to remove background noise from footage of a 184-foot stunt drop.
Collaboration between the numerous agencies and partners involved within the campaign was crucial — especially within the Mntn business that brought together stunts and computer graphics departments — as was the planning needed to get the “most bang for the buck” out a series of 30-second spots.
“It caused all of us to only be ruthless with the choice making,” Denison explained of the creative process. “It was very cool to strip every part right down to its core.”
Perhaps essentially the most understated of the ads speaks to the truth of stunt work the clearest. The spot for Kiehl’s, a 173-year-old brand owned by L’Oréal that had never run a national TV ad before, shows what stunt work is like between takes. The Western-inspired concept evolved from water cooler conversations concerning the funniest stories the stunt crews had about their work, and demonstrates the worth proposition of Kiehl’s Better Screen UV Serum as stunt players are left of their rigs while everyone else on set — including the horses — goes to lunch.
“This is a fun approach to make clear something that may actually occur, but there’s no real jeopardy to being wrapped up within the rig as they were,” Denison noted on the low-impact stunt.
Timing is every part
The timeline for the campaign was accelerated, requiring tight planning and teamwork throughout the method. The production began to choose up speed before Christmas, but when everyone got here back to work in January, wildfires began wreaking havoc within the Los Angeles area.
“There were actually some folks on our crew that were were heavily affected by the fires,” Denison said. “I can’t speak for them, but from what I witnessed, their attitude was considered one of, ‘Let’s get to work. Let’s show the spirit of Los Angeles isn’t broken after this giant natural disaster.’”
All together, the production of the six spots serves as one other reminder of the resiliency of LA and its creative ecosystem. That spirit was a spotlight of the Oscars broadcast on Sunday but stunt work was not. There continues to be no Academy Award for stunts, although many within the film industry have been lobbying for change. The buzzy ad stunt could help proceed a conversation recently ignited by movies including “Once Upon A Time In Hollywood” and “The Fall Guy.”
“We feel that motion is a fundamental component of filmmaking, the creativity that goes into it and the meticulous planning and professionalism is, for my part, every bit as on par with the opposite disciplines which are recognized by the Academy,” Denison said. “Nobody who’s an energetic stunt performer got to where they’re through an absence of determination or resilience, so we’re just going to maintain advocating for that and and keep doing what we do.”
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