Metro filmmakers make Super Bowl-worthy commercials
Men among 10 finalists in contest to win $1 million and a 30-second spot during championship game
Commercials by two Metro Vancouver filmmakers are among the 10 finalists in the Doritos Crash the Super Bowl Contest.
Selfish Sneezers by Devon Ferguson and When Pigs Fly by Graham Talbot were selected from nearly 4,900 submissions from 29 countries. Two of the 10 finalists will have their 30-second commercials — advertising Doritos corn chips — broadcast during the Super Bowl on Sunday, Feb. 1.
An estimated 100 million people around the world will watch the game.
In addition, a grand prize winner will be chosen by fan votes. The grand prize winner receives $1 million US and the opportunity to work for a year on-site at Universal Pictures in Hollywood.
No other Canadians made it to the final 10. Six of the other finalists are from the U.S. with one each from the U.K. and Australia.
Ferguson’s commercial is about what happens when seven best friends have to share six bags of Doritos. To make sure they don’t have to share, they “accidentally” sneeze into their open bag of Doritos.
Ferguson, a Vancouver filmmaker, said the idea goes back to when he was a teenager in school.
“I would go to the cafeteria to buy poutine,” Ferguson said in a phone interview from Hawaii, where he was celebrating his 31st birthday.
“When I would bring it back to the table with my guy friends, they would all get their fingers in it and start snatching my food away. I decided as I approached the table to fake sneeze on them.”
The ruse worked. After a couple of sneezes, he got to keep all his poutine for himself. He became a “selfish sneezer.”
Not getting caught is important. “They can’t get mad at you for sneezing,” he said. “You have allergies, you know — and that happened at the moment when you opened the bag. It’s pretty ridiculous.”
If he wins the grand prize, he plans to use the money to buy property and develop feature film ideas.
Graham Talbot said he and his brother Nelson came up with a story that involves a child asking for Doritos from an adult only to be told he’ll get them “when pigs fly.” The child then goes away and figures out how to make a pig fly.
After entering the Crash the Super Bowl Contest last year, Talbot said, he and his brother figured out what kind of Super Bowl commercials Doritos was interested in.
“We knew that Doritos and Super Bowl commercials in general really like kids and animals and that kid of thing,” he said from Maple Ridge.
“You’ve got to find the same tonality that their other commercials have and make sure it fits with their image and what they like. That was our main criterion: put a kid and an animal in it — and make it really cool and bold.”
Talbot, 25, said his brother came up with the idea for the commercial in a brainstorming session. One of the biggest challenges was figuring out how to make a pig look like it’s flying. They eventually settled on strapping aOKket engine to the back of the pig. The commercial has a happy ending: the boy finally has his bag of Doritos and gives the pig a “good boy” pat for a job well done.
On the day of the shoot in Aldergrove, Bernie the pig wasn’t at his best.
“He wasn’t feeling good that day,” Talbot said. “He was having a hard time standing still.”
Talbot said if he wins the grand prize, he plans to pay off what he owes on his camera and move out of his parents’ house.
Each of the 10 finalists wins an invitation to attend Super Bowl XLIX and watch the game from a private suite. That’s when they’ll learn which advertisements were chosen to be broadcast for the big game. The runner-up whose advertisement airs but doesn’t receive the most fan votes wins $50,000. The eight finalists whose commercials don’t air during the Super Bowl win $25,000.
Crash the Super Bowl started in 2007 for Super Bowl XLI. This year marks the second time the competition has been opened to a worldwide audience. Doritos is part of PepsiCo, a company that generated more than $66 billion in net revenue in 2013.