Director Ian Sciacaluga
An obsessive Super-8 film maker from his early teens, Ian graduated with distinction from the London International Film School in ’91 thanks to his lavishly designed short film “The Rise and Fall of Richard Parsons” Marking the start of his Advertising career, Ian was a finalist at the Cannes New Directors Advertising Awards in 2001 with a humerous Pampers TV spot featuring a flatulent baby.
His Freeserve Anytime campaign for M&C Saatchi featuring nudists, hippies and the modern art movement, proved to be one of the most successful UK advertising campaigns in recent years and inspired a style of film making prevalent in London advertising today..
Creative Team: Neil Brush, Steve Loftus, Simon Bougourd, Nick Robinson & Kat Mather
The brief was to produce 2 x 5 second idents for London Underground LCD screen playouts. In these two amusing idents, one shows a committed surfer making for the sea but he’s mistaken his surfboard for an ironing board; in the other, an attractive woman carefully 
mis-applies her lipstick in front of a mirror. Neither script suggests stupidity – just a lack of glasses or contact lenses with the line “Should've gone to Specsavers”.
It was a low budget/quick turnaround job which was commissioned, completed and formatted ready for playout in just over a week. The technical background for this new media – in effect, live action posters designed to communicate with commuters in corridors, ticket halls and exits – is as follows:
- The LCD screens are 57 inch 16.9 in format which are rotated to run in portrait format. The output is HD video with no audio capability.
- HD Video – 1920 x 1080i (Interlaced not progressive scan) Data rates: Multiplex Bit rate 6500 kbps. Constant bit rate.Video Bit Rate 7,000KbpsAudio Bit Rate 5,000Kbps. A silent digital audio stream must be included at 48 Khz (2 channel).
Director’s comment
I wanted to present these idents simply and graphically, so that they are succinctly displayed on the digital LCD screens. Ian Sciacaluga
Master
Sam Lock. Freelance producer - Specsavers. “We just want to say a big thank you to Commercials Unlimited for all your efforts in creating SURFER and LIPSTICK. The clients are very happy with them and I think you’ve done wonders with no time and no money!”