Breathe is a shocking film. So it achieves its aim perfectly. The 60 second experience of drowning was created by Blink director, Tomas Mankovsky for RNLI, the “charity that saves lives at sea.”
Leo Burnett Change won the account for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution in July 2013. Leo Burnett Change is the division of the Leo Burnett Group that takes on not-for-profit and behavioural change communications.
Respect the Water, of which Breathe is the launch ad, is the RNLI’s first national drowning prevention campaign.
The ad’s idea is simple – make viewers experience drowning.
So Blink and its director, Tomas Mankovsky, created the film from a first person perspective.
The film challenges viewers to hold their breath while experiencing the struggles of a man in the sea fighting the surprising power of cold water shock.
Creative credits:
Production company: Blink
Director: Tomas Mankovsky
Producer: Sam Levene
Executive producer: James Bland
DoP: Magnus Jønck
Editor: Max Windows @ Stitch
Post production: The Electric Collective
Sound: Sam Robson @ 750
Agency: Leo Burnett Change
Agency Producer: Jennifer Fewster
Executive creative director: Beri Cheetham
Agency creatives: Ben Newman, Blake Waters & Milo Williams
Blink has had a particularly successful last eighteen months. In 2014, it signed Luis Cervero, Tim Bullock and Michael Spiccia,. This year, Blink signed Filip Nilsson. It was the 2nd Most Awarded Production Company at D&AD this year, and 2nd in the Palme d’Or award for most awarded production company at Cannes.
Blink director, Dougal Wilson won the Grand Prix in Film Craft for John Lewis Monty’s Christmas for adam&eveDDB, a Gold Lion for Direction, Post Production (MPC), a Gold for Branded Entertainment, a Silver for Film and a Bronze Lion in Titanium & Integrated.
Dougal also won a Silver Lion for Film, and Bronze for Film Craft for Ikea T-Shirts for Mother London.
This month too Blink director, Samuel Abrahams, created the online film Offline Dating, which explores the ‘endangered’ art of asking someone out in person.
