ADra sakka! ADra mokka! - 5

There is something wonderful about advertising films. PR, my friend and I have had very similar backgrounds coming to Mumbai from South working as assistant directors in our initial years and moving to a different medium in the last five years.

Every time we meet up, we invariably end up discussing the same thing again and again..which is about how we miss the assistant directorgiri running around for costumes, spending hours at Prithvi Theatre looking for the right faces for ads, our respective Hitler bosses, the peanuts we received as salary and the best and worst of advertisement films on air.

Last week when she was home, we discussed this particular ad for a long time. Foot candles is, according to me the best ad film production house in the country. And Vinyl Matthew who directs all their Cadbury Dairy milk ads is a fantastic director and gets the best out of his actors.

This particular ad for Cadbury Dairy milk too is on their umbrella idea of 'Kuch Meetha Ho Jaye' . The ad encourages you to have a sweet , in this case Cadbury Dairy milk to celebrate the start of a new relationship. The TVC (Television Commercial) starts with the younger sister entering the room where her older sister is busy pouring tea / coffee into the cups. We figure out the younger sister has just been 'Ponnu paathufyed' when she (younger sis) imitates the bit where she had to seek the blessings of the elders. There is this weird phoren accent she puts while doing so. Her elder sister asks how she liked Siddharth, the boy. The younger one isn't impressed and starts imitating the boy's accent, his clothes and so on. Akka patiently listens to her sister and hands over a piece of Cadbury Dairy milk and concludes that her sister is ok with the alliance and  asks "You like him, right?" The younger sister blushes having been 'caught' by her akka. Younger one has more to add about Sid. "Oh Sid, eh!" the elder one teases and the TVC concludes with the younger one giving her sister a very embarrassed "Stop it will you?" look when the older sister asks about 'Sid' again.

The age difference between the sisters is about 7-8 years and just right for the Akka to immediately read her  thangai's mind. Not sure if a 2-3 year's age gap between them would have made this TVC believable. 

Telugu / Tamizh actor Swathi (of Subramaniapuram) is lovely as the younger sister. My guess is that the director would've cast her after seeing her in this song where her eyes speak a lot. The older sister is a familiar face in the ad circuit. I'm unable to place her now. Will update this post as soon as I get to know.

The best part about the TVC is that till the older sister asks the younger sister "You like him, right!" and you see the younger one's expressions there is not a hint to us, the viewer that the younger one has fallen for the guy. The director could've made it very obvious to us with getting the younger one to blush when she talks about Siddharth or getting the older sister to respond with an over the top "Pakad gaye na?" expression. Even we are caught by the surprise when the younger one kinda admits she likes the guy. You go back and see the ad to catch the older sister's expression at 0:10 when the younger one talks about Siddharth. Check it out

You don't need lavish sets, Akela crane shots, peppy jingle etc to make things work. This ad is set in a part of a room and my guess is that this must've been shot in two days. The sisters' costumes are lovely and both of them look very pretty. This, according to me is the best in the Cadbury Dairy milk series with its simplicity, direction and casting. The ad has been directed by Vinyl Mathew and Tassaduq Hussain is the Director of Photography.

Malarum Ninaivugal

There are certain commercials that are remembered for a particular moment / expression of the actors. These are most often not pre-planned , in the sense not mentioned in the storyboard. You go with the flow, direct the commercial and when it goes on air becomes a hit when people talk about that particular moment. Like this particular TVC. It is your regular toothpaste commercial. But people still remember it for the youngest kid saying "Off-White" . A bunch of kids were cast for this and it was on the sets that one decided to get the tiny one to say "Off-White".

Unfortunately after it went on air, it had to be pulled out after some time 'coz the lead model Ruby Bhatia had already done a Closeup TVC and had er.. "forgotten" to inform the agency, client & the production company about it. The Closeup guys put their commercial too on air at the same time. So Ruby at one point was on air endorsing both Colgate and Closeup. The Colgate ad had to be shot with another model after some time.

Did I mention the brownies made by the "Off-White" kid's mom were awesome? I was an assistant director on this TVC (in '99) and the kid and mother would visit our production house often with brownies... Malarum Ninaivugal!

Check out the ad.