Film > Innovation in Film

FLIP

UNCOMMON CREATIVE STUDIO, London / B&Q / 2022

Awards:

Shortlisted Cannes Lions
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Film
Demo Film

Overview

Credits

Overview

Write a short summary of what happens in the film

Nobody just wakes up and decides to improve their home. Life happens, things change, and your home needs to change with them. B&Q enables us to do just that with ease. This film is a powerful story of change, made easy, all captured in one beautiful moment.

The film shows a woman flip-her-house-beautiful, as she takes control of the exciting yet daunting news of a new baby. Her house literally and figuratively flips 180 degrees as she navigates this change to her life and her home.

Shot for real in just a few long takes, on a rotating 24 tonne set, at its highest six storeys high, with both the actors and the camera team, including director, in wires making something incredibly difficult look effortless. Combining honest performances and a fantastical world, the tone of the film is brought to life by David Bowie’s legendary track Sound and Vision.

Cultural / Context information for the jury

B&Q is the UK’s leading home improvement and garden retailer - helping customers improve their homes since 1969. B&Q’s mission is to give customers the power to act whenever life strikes; to make the changes they need at a speed that works for them. To do this B&Q knows it needs to be fast, efficient, available, and convenient. This can only be made possible through DIY.com and an unmatched network of over 300 stores — together they give customers access to the Click & Collect service on 28,000 items and home delivery service on 35,000.

The new work follows the success of ‘Build a Life’, which introduced the brand’s belief that anyone can change their home to make life better. The latest campaign, ‘Change. Made Easier.’ builds on this, showcasing how the brand makes it easy for homes to keep pace when changes happen in life.

Explain how the work innovatively used the film medium.

Schedule, size, weight and movement were the challenges. The set was enormously bigger and the technical elements of the shoot were far more complex and time consuming than anticipated. It was a feat of civil engineering achieved in six weeks. The final set build was twice as big as Stanley Kubrick’s rotating spaceship in 2001.

The house itself was built to fit in a football stadium, as no regular studios had a large enough capacity. The film was shot entirely in-camera — after numerous models, 3D builds, and several practice set builds — the 24-ton rotating set came to life.

Defying gravity looks effortless on camera, but logistics and realities of shooting normal life on a huge rotating set in just a few long takes was the total opposite. The behind the scenes film gives a glimpse into the scale this production grew to.

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