Road safety commercials tend to rely on shocking road accident footage. There is none in New Zealand’s new road safety new commercial by FCB New Zealand and director, Steve Ayson.
The idea behind the commercial, The Toll Booth, for NZ transport agency, Waka Kotahi, is very simple. A man is stopped by a toll woman. He must pay a road toll to pass – his youngest child. The impact, and it’s a mighty wallop, comes from Ayson’s directing decisions. The mood, the moments, the connection he builds with the characters and the pauses he has chosen. You will feel the driver’s dread. You will feel that the toll is completely unacceptable. You will understand that human lives are at stake. And all of this underlines the aim of the commercial, to jolt drivers out of complacency around road safety.
“The key to this script was how to handle the analogy of a road toll being portrayed literally as a toll booth, without it falling into a gimmick,” Ayson explained. “I worked hard to make sure that the toll lady had a dark, off-ness to her. That she felt real, but somewhat odd and menacing too. She had to have a sombre presence.”
He continued, “My approach was to set up the little girl, so that the audience had an emotional connection with her. This way when the toll lady asks for “just the little one” and the analogy is revealed, viewers care about the loss because they know the girl and her dad. As a team we were also conscious not to let the ‘family’ part of the story be saccharin or cliché fun, so that the dark nature of the booth never became ‘tacked on’. For this reason, there is a sense of menace or tension even in the early part of the story, partly thanks to the score (by Cam Ballantyne at Beatworms), but also in the way the edit only gives away moments, peppering in the foreboding nature of what they’re heading into.
“Casting also had to be spot on as did the performances. There’s always a chance this doesn’t happen with children, but I feel that both kids did brilliantly.”
3&7 was due to shoot The Toll Booth in August 2021 but then a Covid lockdown happened. The shoot date was moved to late September. The lockdown persisted. In December, with the shoot dates finally locked in, 3&7 director Steve Ayson was back in LA, so he had to direct the film remotely.
“I had already scouted the locations and sat in callbacks with key cast before we were locked down. I had DP, Marty Williams; 1st AD, Luke Robinson and producer, Larisa Tiffin, as familiar allies, so I felt confident to remote the shoot,” he noted.
“In fact, and I never thought I’d ever say this, I loved shooting it remotely. I have never felt so focused and so prepared. I had a huge table with boards, dialogue notes and visual ideas laid out in front of me. This combined with the ability to just mute the zoom between set-ups, and no one asking me questions, I was more conscious and present to my vision than I’ve ever been. FCB supported the idea to craft something that felt completely different than what’s been seen so far for ‘road safety’. For me, this was a dream job, with a smart team from FCB and a trusting client.”
The commercial is part of Road to Zero, New Zealand’s road safety strategy, which was launched by Te Manatū Waka, the Ministry of Transport in 2019.
Lauren Cooke, senior manager education and marketing, Waka Kotahi, stated, “We want all New Zealanders to get where they are going safely whether they’re walking, cycling, driving, motorcycling or taking public transport. Zero deaths might sound impossible, but Road to Zero is New Zealand’s plan to get there.”
The TVC is being supported across online, print, cinema, OOH, digital/social and partnerships.
Credits:
Client: Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency
Creative Agency: FCB Aotearoa
Production Company 3&7
Director: Steve Ayson
Producer: Larisa Tiffin
Production Manager: Kristian Eek
Editor: Luke Haigh
DOP: Marty Williams
Gaffer: Jamie Couper
Key Grip: Sam Strain
Production Designer: Ken Turner
Costume Designers: Kirsty Cameron (Auckland) & Gabrielle Stevenson (Queenstown)
Make-up Artist: Lisa Shearer
Sound Recorder: Richard Flynn
Casting: Adrian Dentice (Auckland) & Jackie Gay (Queenstown)
Online: Blockhead
Music: Cam Ballantyne
Photographer: Steve Boniface
Media Agency: FCB Media
