Quote:Written Task (150 words min.):Describe the TV commercial you've designed to promote this season's playoffs. What music will accompany the commercial (remember this is something that people will be hearing over and over again throughout the playoffs)? What teams/players/messages will you feature?

Back when Halo 3 was just coming out, Bungie/Microsoft went with an ad campaign that really impressed me. Part of it was interviews with "veterans" of the games wars, just actors playing the part of UNSC soldiers. And I think a commercial of players that have retired would be cool to see.

But the truly best spot, in my opinion, in that series of ads was 'Believe', which was a video of one point in time during a battle. The combatants are all frozen, and the video looks like it's consisting of models on a diorama set. Chopin's Raindrop Prelude plays as we see soldiers screaming, firing their guns, enemies surrounding them. And in the end, you see Master Chief being held aloft by an enemy commander. You think he's dead, until you notice the grenade in his hand is active and he looks at the viewer.

My ad for the Challenge Cup Playoffs would be similar. It would feature tilt-shifted, three-dimensionally rotating stills of games between the teams involved, in different situations. A defender slides to block a shot. A player gets crunched into the boards by an opponent. Someone wheels away from the net in celebration after scoring a goal. A goalie reaches out to stop the puck just moments before it crosses the goal line. A coach yells in frustration at a player on the bench. The Halo commercial highlighted moments of action and drama, the SHL commercial can do the same.

Keep the same song. I think Raindrop Prelude has a very epic feel to it, as if something great is about to happen, and that's something you really want to sell to get people interested in watching the games.

The final shot would be the opening faceoff of a game. The camera pans past the frozen centers on the draw, past the benches full of players tentative and still, down a hall, where we see the Challenge Cup shining in all its glory.

Here's a link to the ads I was talking about: some of the interviews, and the final Believe advertisement. Still my favorite ad campaign ever. ■

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