NO SURPRISE THAT LEO BURNETT, which, with its several other agency divisions, dominated the CAF-sponsored nominations with five out of six nods for Agency of the Year, won the Agency of the Year award. And no surprise, either, that its P&G client was voted Client of the Year undoubtedly for its Always #Like a Girl” campaign.
The Publicis-owned agency also snared many others, including including Best Radio for Allstate’s “Mayhem’s All-Time Greatest Hits Countdown;” Best of Video Branded content for P&G’s #LikeAGirl for P&G; P&G again and Miller High Life for Best Digital Advertising and won for an “Unthink Magritte” campaign for the Art Institute of Chicago in the advertising for the arts category.
The Best of Show trophy went to Burnett division DigitasLBi and its Team 180 unit for a “Maytag Man” campaign that featured an updated Maytag Man posing as a variety of appliances.
ON SATURDAY NIGHT, IFP/CHICAGO holds another of its popular “75 Minutes with …” interviews, with a young director whose feature was a huge hit at SXSW last year and which will screen at the Music Box Theatre at midnight.
Chicago Reader’s Drew Hunt will interview Joel Potrykus, of Grand Rapids, about his career and the making of “Buzzard,” which Potrykus calls “Albert Camus meets Kreuger, a hellish and hilarious riff on the struggles of the American working class.”
The interview starts at 10 p.m. in the new Music Box Lounge, the movie screens at midnight. Tickets are $10. The event was organized by new IFP board member Mike McNamara, whose Midwest Independent Film Festival is an event co-sponsor.
TWO BY FOUR’S new client is Ronald McDonald House Charities of Chicagoland and Northwest Indiana. The agency will be responsible for campaign concept and development to raise awareness and understanding of the Ronald McDonald Houses and their mission, and also promote larger fundraising initiatives throughout the year.
NEW AT ABELSON TAYLOR is executive producer Melissa Taylor, who reunites with her former RDS colleague Mitch Apley, the agency’s senior director of broadcast/print production. She had also worked for Abelson Taylor as a contract senior producer. She’d been an EP at RDS.
IT WAS NICE that the Chicago Film Office had been nominated for Locations Managers Guld of America’s Outstanding Film Commission of the year. But alas, we lost to the City of Long Beach Office of Special Events and Filming. Their office issued 437 film permits last year for 695 production days. (We’re waiting for Chicago’s 2014 film stats to be issued which should show we had an extremely busy year.)
REEL MICHIGAN: Michigan’s film incentives are under fire, still again. A battle has begun over keeping the $50 million alive when it comes up for renewal Oct. 1, so Michigan can continue to have a viable film industry or to kill it like the state is killing the unions.
Nonetheless, Detroit-based Exxodus Pictures was awarded $1.3 million to shoot three features in Michigan – the first projects approved by the state for fiscal year 2015. The films are expected to generate 99 jobs and $3.7 million in production expenditures.
Locations for the first slated film is Detroit, South Lyon, West Bloomfield Township and Utica; the second in metro Detroit; the third in the Upper Peninsula.
SEE WHO WAS HAVING FUN at the CAF Awards gala last night at the Museum of Broadcast Communications on The Reel’s Facebook Photo Album.
