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Without people a city would be an empty maze of steel and concrete. And without emotional connections, these people would be no more than worker bees. It’s human emotion that connects us. All these personal interactions give a city its pulse. With this campaign it’s important that the images we see connect us with the emotional undercurrent of human ambition. The trash collector working the city beat at midnight or the lone executive working late in an empty office are both equally important fixtures in the urban landscape. I see this campaign as a way to thank humanity and the perseverance of the human spirit that makes the world so wonderful. This is a beautiful homage to hard work. I know I can create an honest anthem for hard workers because I believe in the American dream. Which is now a global dream, where everyone can innovate and everyone can matter. This campaign will show the way Citibank enables people to follow their dreams through effort and determination. It can’t be a typical corporate commercial that strangles the pulse of humanity; instead, it’s about filming real faces with a diversity of world casting, using available light and finding the natural glow that each city exudes. Creating a visual tapestry that weaves between epic helicopter shots and intimate portraits will bring this poem of ambition to life. I want to be unpredictable with all of our choices – including the music, voiceover and the editing, so the audience is continually engaged, awed and inspired.
Tone
I’ll target moments that are caught in that split second of unguarded emotion. The tone I capture throughout will remove any filters between camera and subject. We’ll see the vulnerability that’s usually kept hidden far below the surface. That determination to succeed paired with a hidden fear of failing. The hard work that’s rewarding but also often exhausting. The camera technique will never manipulate or distort the authenticity we’re after. The lighting and overall look will be cinematic, capturing subtle nuances of beauty even in concrete, steel and brick urban backdrops. I think it’s important to use the textures of real environments, so I’ll shoot with available light and capture wet asphalt, empty rooms, blinking overhead lighting, neon signage, the sun’s reflection against a skyscraper, a halo of light surrounding a girl running home from school, wind, rain, anticipation, excitement, worry and fear –because all these details will be the types of real textures bringing honest beauty to these films.
The Campaign
In all the moments I think it’s important to focus on that spirit of innovation and creation, where perseverance goes hand in hand with hard work and determination. We’re focusing on people who make things because that is also the foundation of the Citi relationship. Particularly in the anthem spot, interweaving abstract images with portraits of hard work will build the energy into a palpable momentum of unbridled ambition. Abstract shots of an eyeball blinking, lights turning on, lightening striking, fireworks, fireballs, energy running across a power grid, a woman struggling through the rain to try and get to work, a paper airplane flies from an apartment window, a child splashes into a puddle at the side of the street, a construction worker hauls pipes through a torn up city street, a flock of birds flies up over a city skyline, a beautiful street art mural (such as the corner of Houston and Bowery in New York) as people hustle past it, a musician plays on the city corner and the camera cuts to a close up shot on a coin as it flies from someone’s hand and into the musician’s upturned cap. A still image of a painting like ‘Nighthawks’ by Edward Hopper transitions us into a real image of people walking past a diner with others inside having a meal after a long day of work. Black and white shots of New York City in 1950 as people hustle along the streets will be a nice image to intercut - the hustle in the cities of the world has been happening for over a century. These unexpected images will interweave with close up shots of faces and emotions to create this unforgettable poem of determination and hope, hard work and opportunity.