Creative Shorts is a programme run by The Institute of Creative Advertising and Design. It was initially launched in 2012, and this campaign was produced for the 8th Creative Shorts programme. This event exhibits a selection of work created by those working in the industries represented by ICAD. Creative Shorts is not a competition, but rather a curated evening of short films made by creatives outside of their 9-5.
The initial concept for the promotional videos for the 2019 Creative Shorts was a reference to countdown leaders used in old projection theatres. The annual location of the event is the sugar club, a cinema theatre which uses projection rather than a digital screen. The style of leader that these films are based on is ‘The Society Leader,’ a version of film leader developed in 1951, and the style which would have been in use in 1963 when the Sugar Club was esablished.
The traditional purpose of a countdown leader is to act as a method of identifying the film being screened, timing the visuals correctly on the projector, instructing the person responsible as to the films screening requirements and introducing the following footage. This speaks to the purpose of this social campaign: to make the event and programme known to potential attendees , to brand the event, to communicate the timeline of the programme and to instruct ICAD’s followers about participating in the programme and attending the event. These videos were in effect a leader to the event itself.
Countdown leaders are designed along a strict template, to ensure they are universally useful. These videos used this template as a starting point, but include clips from work screened in previous years, as well as graphic elements relating to ICAD and the event itself. The following film, which launches the event again uses these graphic devices and visual style, as well as using a ragtime tune which evokes a sense of the vintage movie theatre. Finally the third video, the programme announcement, also uses a ragtime tune and the establisehd visual style, this time referencing the end credits of a film. These films are designed so that were the first two social posts played in sequence before the series of shorts films, and the third social post was played after, they would knit together to work as a leader, film titles and end credits when the shorts were published later on.
