At the Kodak Commercials Awards ceremony on 18th May, The Fight swept home the 2nd place award for best in the Ataxia Awareness brief!
The Kodak Commercials Awards is a competition across universities that are part of NAHEMI, organised in partnership with Regent Street Cinema. Shot on 35mm film supplied by Kodak, these unique 30-second commercials aim to create the best fit for the various commercial briefs provided by real advertising agencies.
As a sound designer for this commercial, my overall goal was to create cohesion within the images - inspired by the juxtaposition between the mental and the physical. The commercial aims to show the mental battle for those with ataxia through a physical boxing match - by cutting between the man struggling to stand up, and the boxer who kept taking punches.
The sounds that were used throughout the commercial aim to create a spiking, uncomfortable sensation to put the audience in the shoes of the ataxia sufferer. Using a mix of sharp electrical sounds and distorted synths, and mixing them with the sound of the punches, it creates a cerebral discomfort which reflects the difficulty for ataxia sufferers to control their bodies.
An element which links the internal struggle with the exterior environment is the bell. In real life, the man is reacting to the doorbell ringing, and in the fight metaphor, it becomes the boxing bell, at the same time creating a sense of urgency and tension. By reversing the sound of the bell, it creates a feeling that one bell is morphing into another.
All-round congratulations to the team for creating a simple but effective commercial, and to all the other winners across all the categories!
Director: Patrick Forster
Producer: Harry Holroyd
DOP: Katia Shipulina
Editor: Kurosh Shabani