TVC : Mumbai Mirror – Hated by some

Share It

By: Taproot India

The second film in the ‘I am Mumbai’ series by Mumbai Mirror depicts four wrongdoers of the city, based on real stories reported by the daily. All four, a molester, a doctor running a kidney transplant racquet, a woman running a sex trade and a corrupt civil contractor narrate their side of the story to the camera as the background score heats up. Toward the end, they are all holed up or chased away by cops, followed by a montage of common citizens mouthing the tagline. The film winds up with a police van roaring away and the copy, ‘Hated by some. Every morning. Thankfully.’

Do we Like?

In 2012, months after this magazine awarded Taproot’s Agnello Dias as Impact Person of the Year, hewent on to win the Best Direction award (Film Craft)at Cannes Lions. Dias, one-time creative partner of Josy Paul at JWT and now among the brightest minds of our industry, is creative director for this film too.

The Times Group’s compact newspaper, Mumbai Mirror, positions itself as an exclusive carrier of uncomfortable, hard-hitting reports and sits on the thin edge of substance and sensationalism every morning. Its first film, as stunningly shot as this one, raised the bar for media advertising by referencing its own stories;sordid reports of gory realities. Two years on, Mumbai is murkier and its Mirror is unabashedly filthier.

Taking the ‘unpleasantness’ further, this film digs up Mirror’s reports of eve-teasers, illegal kidney transplanters, sex traders and civil contractors who had to raise train platforms after its sustained campaign. The narrative is interspersed, unlike the first film, the background score by Ram Sampathinduces goosebumps, like the first film and the black-and-white treatment is retained too. It’s another win for film-makerAbhinayDeo of Delhi Belly fame and his ace editor HuzefaLokhandwala, kings of the underbelly genre.

The real ace, however, is the script. While the first film’s characters mouthed lines by real-life characters, this film’s villains throw punches at you right from the beginning. Their ‘so what’ attitude toward their heinous crimes provokes anger, disgust and eventually pride, as they’re holed up by the cops. The words spare nothing in trying to be real, and this might be the only ad in a long time to have used the ‘m’ cuss word twice!

The ‘hatred’ copy toward the end is more a sweet punch to those who despise the product’s behaviours but cannot ignore it. Mirror’s bravado comes from knowingthat its one million-ishreaders ‘can’t live with or without’ it, and the visual of a burning copy of the newspaperbreaks all rules of conventional advertising.

Mr Dias isn’t on the IPOY nominees this year. Thankfully.

To watch this film, look up youtube.com/MumMirroror

Social Newsfeed

Your regular dose on the shifts in the social media universe

Delhi cops use Whatsapp to peace out Trilokpuri

The saffron riot engineers might be hard at work but the Delhi police has been on its toes, with a little help from the bright green dot on our phones, the Indian Express reports. Residents of many blocks in the area, which saw rioting and violence recently, are being asked to be in direct touch with the cops using Whatsapp, and that’s also aiding confidence building measures. A senior cop was quoted later by PTI saying that they have asked residents to nominate one volunteer each from their block, who will be in constant touch with senior officials and report untoward activities. Now with the power of voice, images and video, we know this measure can ensure no politically motivated goons are able to disrupt peace in the capital. More power to the Delhi police, who by the way, as reported in this space in 2012, had taken to Facebook for tracking traffic offenders!

Arvind Kejriwal likes this

Heard NASA’s sounds on Soundcloud?

In our occasional recommendations of awesome things on the social web, we’re happy to report that NASA of USA has created an account on Soundcloud. It has put up nearly half a century of its audio recordings, the highlights of which include Armstrong’s ‘giant leap’ words, the ill-fated Apollo 13’s infamous ‘Houston we’ve had a problem’ words (slightly different than what Tom Hanks made popular) and the ‘earthsong’, a noise produced by our own planet thanks to plasma waves. For the astronomically oriented, there are a bunch of ‘noises’ that may captivate you, such as lightning on Jupiter, sonified starlight and the sounds of Saturn. Like its Instagram accounts, here’s another good channel by NASA to know how small we are.

Mohan Bhargav likes this

Sachin, Rajdeep plugging their books hard on social

We didn’t attend many sessions of the just concluded Lit Live, but we’re sure there might have been palpable talk of how books are being marketed these days. If you were in any doubt about social media as a tool to sell your book, two notable wouldbe debutants on the book world have been taking to it of late. Sachin Tendulkar, whose autobiography would be a bestest-seller even with zero publicity, has been putting up YouTube videos of snippets and teasers from his book, and not without clever marketing of the life insurance brand he endorses. Rajdeep Sardesai, whose book on the 2014 elections is a promising look-in to the media-politico scene, has taken to Vine to promote his book. The latter has been rather un-creative and obvious in his way though, saying ‘read my book’ in all his Vines . Hope both the tomes live up to this hype .

Amish likes this

Share It

Tags : e4m