Gritty. That’s The word for this gobsmack of a campaign by agency, Mutant, and Hamlet director, Angelo Cerisara, for Belgian youth radio station, StuBru. It’s uncomfortable to watch but you can’t look away. Missed You Stranger celebrates those random festival encounters you used to have and are about to have again now that lockdown is over (OK, not in the bottom half of the world.) Chance encounters with strangers that you don’t know you’ve missed – yet. The physical touch of a stranger; the meaningless conversations; the charged energy; one-night-only assignations and the “won’t-matter-in-the-morning” feeling.
Beautifully executed aren’t they. And now you remember that you miss those brushes with strangers. Maybe almost as much as you missed the people you know already.
Missed You Stranger heralds the re-opening of the much loved and sorely missed Belgium festival scene and recognises the hardship the ban of social interaction has caused to StuBru listeners.
Angelo Cerisara commented, “When reading the script, the first thing the voiceover reminded me of was listening to an audio guide describing a painting, but since it’s a film we can force the eyes to look where we want them to look. So, the camera is smashing into two tongues, is following a saliva spit and is digging inside arm hair. All those things act like they have a gravitational pull dragging our eyes into them. A reason for repulsion became a reason for attraction.”
Jason Felstead, co-founder and executive producer, Hamlet, added, “During the last year and a half a new word was introduced in Belgium which translates as “skin hungry”. That’s what these films so poignantly show us: all of us, and especially youngsters, became hungry for touch, even with random strangers and I love how Mutant turned this feeling into a campaign. At the same time the films make us slightly uncomfortable and that, I think, was magnificently executed by Angelo in his first project for us.”
Credits
Client: VRT StuBru
Agency: Mutant
Creative Director: Odin Saillé
Art Director: Usman Abdul
Copywriter: Ruben Van Maldeghem
Creative Team: Usman Abdul, Catherine Hermans, Ruben Van Maldeghem, Simon Pyson, Iris Nuyts
Account Manager & Agency Producer: Innie Tran
Production Company: HAMLET Brussels
Director & Editor: Angelo Cerisara
Executive Producers: Ruben Goots & Jason Felstead
Producer: Pim Verhaert
Production Manager: Robin Paul
Post-Producers: Dominique Ruys & Pim Verhaert
Director of Photography: Edouard Le Grelle
Sound Design & Sound Port-Production: Raygun
Colour Grade: Francis Qureshi
VFX Company: Divide
VFX Supervisor: Maarten Baert
Image Post-Production: Divide
