A Homeless Polar Bear In the Streets Of London

Micheal Georghegan's 90' cinema commercial, "SAVE THE ARTIC'  for Greenpeace launched on the 3rd July, here he discusses the work, the inspiration behind this stunning statement and the many people who helped him create this beautiful vision:

 

"I had been asked to judge an anti VW film competition for Greenpeace and whilst taking a tour of their offices, I spotted a life-sized polar bear suit hanging in the corner of their dusty wear-house.

 

They had purchased it from the national theatre at the end of the run of a play called 'Greenland'.

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John Sauven, the executive director, had been chatting about the up coming 'Save The Artic' campaign and an idea sprung into my head: what if all the ice had melted, and this polar bear had travelled so far that he was living in Hackney, London? The homeless Polar Bear was born.

 

I wrote the idea and put together a treatment over the next couple of days and pitched it to them and they liked it.

 

Now all I had to do was speak to Madeleine (from Partizan), who graciously agreed to help me get it made.

 

We got in contact with the movement director of the movie 'War Horse' and they put together a crew of five puppeteers. The shoot was simple enough, we had a bit of hassle from the landlords of the local Shell Garage but apart from that, the shoot was a gift.

 

After some fine tuning in post at MPC, London, we had a cut to show Radiohead's Tom Yorke. He really liked the film and said we could use any of the band's music.  I chose 'Everything in it's Right Place', partly because the polar bear obviously wasn't in its right place but mostly because of the way it builds emotionally. Then we sent the film to Jude Law and he kindly agreed to do the voice over... Job done."

 

To view the work, click here: http://www.lbbonline.com/videos/1233/

To watch the making of, click here: http://www.lbbonline.com/videos/1235/

 

The film has  been released within cinemas in France and will be screened within TV screens in New Zealand, China and Hong Kong 

 

Client: GREENPEACE 

Production Company: PARTIZAN

Director: MICHEAL GEOGHEGAN

Producer: RUSSELL CURTIS

DOP: VINCENT WARIN

Writers: MICHEAL GEOGHEGAN & SIMON RILEY

Editor: LEO KING, STITCH

Post: MOVING PICTURE COMPANY

Music: RADIOHEAD

VO: JUDE LAW