When The Stable was sent Olivier Staub’s PSA, It Has to Stop, about mobile phone use while driving, I wrote this [:ed]:
“Have we become immune to shock in road safety commercials? Try not to feel the horror of this one. It’s the repetition of the accident. It’s seeing the driver filming the accident. It’s the eerie stillness of the accident that stay with you. That was the idea of director, Olivier Staub.” I watched it again today. It still sends a chill down my spine.
The Producers director, Olivier Staub, creates work that gets noticed. An inventive director, he has an intuitive flair for presenting the strikingly different point of view and creating triggers for emotion. He translates scripts into visuals are beautiful and stories that are exhilarating, shocking, delightful…and above all, memorable.
The extraordinary performances of It Has To Stop, made for SAAQ (Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec) with Canadian agency, Lg2, were captured in camera. And to loop of accidents into infinity, he used a mix of photography, CGI, traditional retouching, composition, and 3D mapping.
Staub commented, “We cast amazing stunt performers who took strong bounces on a small trampoline to project themselves and crash into a plexiglass. In the end it became a powerful and an intriguing cinematic piece, standing in a very unusual territory of its own. The sound design carved the final but essential layer of drama.”
Staub’s work has continued to stand out in crowds of commercials throughout the world. For Cossette Quebec and Government of Quebec MSSS he told a surreal story of Kubrickian proportions about isolation and solitude, using the poetic device of being slanted to illustrate a life that is off-kilter.
To encourage vaccinations during the pandemic, he wove together drama with comedy and playfulness – a series of children defiantly scaring Covid – underlined by ultra-slow motion and an orchestral soundtrack by Paul-Etienne Cote. For Centraide, he told a story about poverty and exclusion, not with miserabilism but with hopefulness and a literal translation of elevation.
Staub also has what many directors only aspire to, genre-defying versatility and the ability to create great work under pressure. His work ranges from daring and provocative to touching and elevating. It is always ambitious. It has never failed to stand out.
He has won at international festivals such as Cannes Lions, D&AD, New York Festivals, ADC, Kinsale and The Andys, as well as local and publication awards throughout the world. He has been features in Luërzer’s Archive many times.
Noelle Jones, executive producer, The Producers, commented, “I can’t speak more highly of Olivier as an amazing director and incredible human. Every project he touches turns to gold. He is a great collaborator who produces beautifully crafted and well-considered work that has won him, deservedly, international recognition.”
Olivier Staub, added, “It’s a crazy, reckless kind of love I have, but one that can be depended on to make beautiful commercials that deliver.”
For enquiries, contact Noelle Jones, +61 488 076 556 or by email.
