The Queen and Fresh Film team up to create fast-paced Starbucks commercial

Created by IRIS London and directed by the duo The Queen with Fresh Film, a fast-paced 60-second spot for Starbucks provided a fantastic chance for the Queen to experiment with new ideas and techniques. And thanks to ECD Daryl Corp’s trust lots of their tricks came out the box.

Talking about the film, The Queen said: “We often film eachother acting things out, to develop the sequence and see what’s going to work. We absolutely had to do that with this commercial.”

Matt Pickles and Nick Jowitt’s script was already packed with great ideas. The commercial initially veered towards a more stop-frame aesthetic, but as the team looked through the sequence, they thought that a live-action execution would look much more impressive, and meant they could fit a lot more of the tricks into a shorter space of time.

“There were a bunch of ways we could’ve done the POV, but we found that using a small handheld camera gave us a lot more control over movement, since everything had to be so choreographed. Simon Petter, the producer, factored-in a test day, with some of our go to key crew and our barista which was really useful,” said The Queen.

“The art dept obviously played a massive part in making the tricks work. They made purpose-build rigs and tricks that allowed us to do most of the effects practically. We created a marble
surface which fires cups into the air, a coffee packet which dispenses espresso and a revolving table that can physically spin people into shot. These and many more (top secret tricks) were then embellished and cleaned up in a mammoth post-production operation. We wanted to add a few magical moments that seem completely grounded in reality, but utterly impossible, like the almond which multiplies and turns into frothy milk.”

Credits
Directors: The Queen
Production Company: Fresh Film
Producer: Simon Petter
1st AD: Paul McCann
DOP: Ben Smithard
Production Designer: Dan Betteridge
Wardrobe: Emily Pirouet
Post Production: Black Kite
Sound: George Castle at GCRS
Music: Mr Pape
Agency: Iris London
Creative Director: Daryl Corps
Copywriter: Matt Pickles
Art Director: Nick Jowitt
Agency Producer: Francesca Roberts