Situation

CANAL+ is the main sponsor of cinematographic creation in France.

In the minds of many, its usually long features, but it also includes short films, notably through sponsoring the most important short-film festivals in France.

Brief

Create an original/unique piece of communication to express the brand’s partnership with the Clermont-Ferrand international short film festival.

Objectives

Highlight the importance of and valorise short films.

Raise awareness about CANAL+ and its place as the main sponsor and supporter of short films and short film festivals, and cinema in general.

The idea was to create a short film in which the audience is made to believe that they are watching a (very) long film with endless lines and silences. The action should be quicker, yet the scene drags on and on. We soon realise that it's really way too long that the hero is doing way too much: his long lines have dramatic consequences. It's only at the very end that the concluding line gives us the clue: "Sometimes, shorter is better."

We noticed that many feature films were far too long, especially these days, and that this was often due to the heroes' long lines, which add nothing to the plot and challenge our shortened attention spans. We wanted to play with that to highlight the incredible format that is the short film.

The rise of short films on the Internet and the many Festivals created for that format in France make us believe this is a great way of communicating for platforms like CANAL+.

The brand has a lifelong commitment to cinema and their audience is used to great and carefully crafted and curated content on the platform, so it is a natural step for CANAL+ to create its very own short film.

The casting was a real challenge. We saw a lot of people and did a lot of sessions to find the main hero. We wanted a charismatic man, reassuring, handsome and at the same time funny and comical in his expressions, someone who likes to listen to himself speak. Casting the actress who plays the flight attendant was very important too. It is a real actress who we unfortunately do not see in the film but who was on set physically too, to give more credibility to the call, and make the tension even more palpable. All the secondary roles were also carefully chosen to bring more substance and body to the story.

Within 1 week of its release the film was viewed over 1.2 M times (with 0 media investment) and was extremely well received. Both specialised and mainstream press have acclaimed it as yet another “tour-de-force” from CANAL+.

Fans of the brand and cinema aficionados engaged more with this film than other classic ads from CANAL+ and took to social media to express their appreciation. Many got hooked and tricked by the format too, saying they didn’t see the end coming. The film was also released on the brands streaming platform myCANAL in the short feature category where it recorded the best viewing scores upon release and a high love score, which helps the brand meet the objective of solidifying its image as main patrons of cinematographic creation in France.