Brand New School, the bicoastal directing collective serving all fields of commercial art, recently directed and completed a mesmerizing spot for iconic telecom company AT&T and Austin and Texas-based ad agency GSD&M. To promote AT&T new affiliation with Napster web-based music service, Brand New School has created a digital homage to an analogue aspect of today music advertising, transforming a generic urban environment into a musical wonderland. The spot began airing April 2, 2007.

‘We were out to capture the funky feeling of a screen-printed music poster,’ says Co-Director Jonathan Notaro. ‘We also wanted to convey how music suffuses the world around the person who is listening to it. We used the vibrantly printed posters to illustrate a playfully referential world of music. Through the spot protagonist, we see the music influence not only the hero character, but also on individual objects in the street.’

The spot opens with a young woman disconnecting her AT&T phone and leaving her house. With her headphones in place, the woman passes a wall of posters for Swedish indie pop group Peter, Bjorn & James. The poster blue and white birds, now animated, accompany her down the block. Having turned a corner, the young woman walks into a where a pink octopus rides a grand piano, electric guitar parking meters have six strings, and storefronts are made out of elaborate banks of speakers. A drum set runs past her, and trees transform into animated brass instruments. As the woman crosses the street and passes out of the scene, the shot widens to reveal an emerging musical wonderland in the neighborhood behind her.

‘A spot like this presents a rare opportunity and a unique challenge,’ says Danny Rosenbloom, Executive Producer at Brand New School. ‘It is such an elaborate concept, and we produced the entire thing, including the shoot, in just over three weeks. Just six days after the spot was awarded, we were shooting in Los Angeles. Two weeks after that, we were done. It was an intense push, but it was also very exciting for us.’

Indeed, the musically transformed neighborhood has been so well-received that Sony plans to use the Brand New School-created posters to promote Peter, Bjorn & James on neighborhood posters throughout the east and west coast. The band is also thinking of using it as their tour poster as well.

About Brand New School
With offices in New York and Los Angeles, Brand New School is a bicoastal directing collective working in all fields of commercial art. Ever evolving, the studio continues to cultivate a sense of wonder and exploration. For its artists and clients alike, BNS represents an opportunity to play at work, to conduct experiments in image-making, and to feed the inspiration that drives the industry.
www.brandnewschool.com