Xbox "Gears of War" with Donnie Darko music

McCann-Erickson San Francisco is the agency of record (AOR) for Xbox. They had a recent Xbox commercial that when I first saw it, I dropped my TV remote; it was that hauntingly amazing. And that's saying a lot because I don't really watch TV shows or commercials when they're on TV (I download commercials to my computer to watch). Here it is in all its glory along with insight from the creative team. More background info can be found at Duncans TV.



Credits
Agency: McCann-Erickson, SF
CD: Scott Duchon, Geoff Edwards
AD: Nate Able
CW: Matt Burnell
Producer: Hannah Murray

Every other video game commercial I've seen (I haven't seen a lot though) doesn't have a soundtrack. Why a soundtrack for this particular one?

Nate Able says...
Because every other video game commercial you've seen doesn't have a soundtrack. Actually, We've seen game spots with tracks on them but not many. And those we have seen didn't do much to connect you with the characters or story. Usually it's just some fast, intense track trying to reinforce how fast and intense the game is.

We thought a more unique approach would be to take a bloody, action shooter like Gears and connect the viewer to the main character with more of a mood piece. Let the viewer feel the hopelessness and despair of the situation. The song has got despair in spades.


How did you choose the song?

We knew the song from the movie Donnie Darko. When the general idea of avoiding the usual cutty, action trailer kind of spot led us to doing a moodier thing the song came up pretty quickly. The spot was pretty much written with the song on repeat.


In my humble opinion, I really think the music is what makes the spot so hauntingly amazing. What do you all think makes the spot so good?

Yeah, it’s pretty much the music. And it doesn’t hurt that the game looks sick. The game looking so good helps make it possible for the viewer to connect with Marcus. Layer on the despair you feel in the song and you practically want to blow your brains out by the end. If a commercial for a video game can actually make people feel something that’s saying something.


Generally speaking, is it hard choosing soundtracks, voice talent, production companies and directors for ads?

Every project is different really. The perfect song for a spot might never come along and you wind up settling for something that’s just ok, or it could be the first song you think of like it happened for Mad World. Same goes for directors and the rest really. In general though, the better the work is the easier it will be to enlist top talent to help you get it done. We were lucky enough on this one to find talented people that had love for it and wanted to be involved.


How did the idea for this TV spot come about?

Long story short the client said, “show us the game. Don’t be clever. Show us the game.” Usually we would start anywhere but just showing the game because that’s what everyone does. But the game looked sweet so we started thinking of ways we could do it and make it unique. Judging by the reaction it has been getting I think we were able to be just clever enough to make something a bit original.


What's it like working at McCann and living in SF?

San Francisco is a great city. Love it here. As far as McCann goes... Well every agency has its issues but, we work with a good group of people on Xbox and we’ve been getting to do some fun work so can’t complain too much.