Charge anxiety. It has crept up on us all slowly – as we asked our phones to do more and more; as we depended on them more and more to make our lives work. Sweetshop and the team’s writers have added their flair for hyperbole to a very smart, relatable idea. Directors, Patrick Chen & Christian McKenzie, have added some brilliant directing decisions to that relatable idea. And the result is a little film that doesn’t feel like a commercial, but it does make One Plus 10R feel like a warm hug.
Its ad devices are imperceptible. The neater, richer and warmer cinematography when the hero, Theo’s, phone charging changes emphasises the key features of the phone: fast charging, the camera, the gaming capabilities, and the smooth experience. You don’t notice it’s a product feature ad. Instead, it feels cool and edgy. That matters when your target audience is Gen Z.
Christian McKenzie, director at Sweetshop, explained, “The idea leapt off the page. The script really was awesome. This guy is trapped in a loop, in a downward spiral. His old phone was the root of his problems. When he got his new OnePlus upgrade, everything just fell into place. We delved into the madness of our hero. Some things went wrong for him. Things such as waiting for his phone to charge, missing the bus and being late for work are relatable – but others we felt pushed things until not being clear and what was going on in his mind. The poor guy was just trying to do his best. We kept saying to Lewis, our lead role, ‘You are a salmon trying to swim upstream.’ Meanwhile, in the first ad, DOP, wardrobe, and art department kept coming up to us saying – Is this a good or bad day? – because there were tweaks to wardrobe and lighting, and for each and we were filming multiple performances in each location. It takes a fair amount of discipline to pull all of that together.”
Patrick Chen, director at Sweetshop, “I think we all felt stuck in the loop! But we had a lot of fun working on this. In fact, OnePlus gave us the trust and freedom to direct such a cool film, which got us excited. It was rewarding to organically incorporate the phone’s numerous desirable features into the final film. We were also blessed with many wonderful actors who gave it their all and a great crew who shared our vision.”
The micro-movie was filmed in Poland and the production took three days in various locations. It was shot as a cinematic independent-feature film, tightly cut and beautiful to watch.
Credits:
Client: OnePlus, Shenzhen
Product: OnePlus 10R
Creative Lead: Alexei Golob
Creative Producer: Amy Li
Lead Writer: David Tsang
Procurement Manager: HuaQing Zheng
Production Company: Sweetshop
Directors: Patrick Chen & Christian McKenzie
DOP: Łukasz Gutt
Managing Director: Laura Geagea
Global Director of Production: Fiona King
Senior Executive Producer: Catherine Law
Producer: Harriet Towler
Production Assistants: Justin Zheng & Dwyane Guo
1st AD: Piotr Łaznowski
Service Company: Oto Film (Warsaw, Poland) Service
Producer: Łukasz Tomasz Kołtunowicz
Service Production Manager: Lucyna Stróżak
Production Designer: Zuzanna Słomińska
Post Producer: Ivy Low
Post Producer Assistant: Mengchen Jiang
Offline Editor: Pang Wei Fong
Colour Grade: Coffee & TV, London
Colourist: Paul Harrison
Online Post: O Five Studio, Shanghai
Executive Producer: Jessica Lin
Post Supervisor: Josen Wu
Online Lead Artist: Josen Wu
Music Composer: Remy Perrin
Audio Post Production: Two AM Music Global, Kuala Lumpur
Executive Producer: Wira Chon
