Courier commercial earns place on awards shortlist

A commercial for The Courier which hit 40 cinemas and millions of TV screens in June has been shortlisted for a prestigious national advertising award.

For The Real Stories, produced by Edinburgh-based Greenroom Films, has been shortlisted for the “commercial over 21 seconds” category of the Scottish Creative Awards, which take place on October 26.

Over the course of two days in May, a 30-strong cast and crew attached to Greenroom Films shot at locations throughout Tayside including The Caird restaurant in Dundee city centre, Murray’s chippy in Broughty Ferry, waste ground at Dundee’s Kingsway East, the Prego shoe boutique in Broughty Ferry and Arbroath cliffs.

The script questions whether stories are black-and-white or whether a complex truth exists somewhere in-between.

Glasgow-born freelance film director Martin Smith, 44, who won a Scottish Bafta in 2006 for his short film Tracks and has made numerous documentaries, said: “The audience recognise themselves in the films, they can see the local area and hopefully that resonates with them.”