Ray Winstone Gets Heavy with the Big Cats

`Save Wild Tigers` has announced the release, today, of a powerful short six-minute film, `Ray the Rug`, featuring award winning British actor Ray Winstone, to highlight the global poaching crisis driving wild tigers towards extinction.

`Save Wild Tigers` is a UK based creative and marketing led campaigning organisation, founded by `Ad man` Simon Clinton. The organisation works with artists, brands and the wider creative world to create high impact marketing campaigns to raise awareness of the plight facing wild Tigers. They have been operating since 2011.

“This has been an amazing creative collaboration, involving numerous talented individuals and agencies across multiple countries, with over 12 months in the making. The passion and creativity shown by everyone has been truly outstanding” Simon commented.

Wild Tigers are being hunted for their skins, bones, and parts by the illegal poaching trade. The global illegal trade in endangered species is worth around $USD 20 billion every year.

Executive creative director Monster Sauce, Steve Back commented, “With first-hand experience, he is the perfect spokesman for the ever-dwindling global tiger population. You see, Ray is a tiger skin rug and more than that he represents the many illegal tiger parts poached from tigers. In the film Ray tells us his life story, a simple delivery to camera that doesn’t let the viewer escape without feeling for Ray. The idea was a truly global collaboration, creatively led by Perth start-up Monster Sauce, working closely with WorthYourWhile Copenhagen and masterfully brought to life by the team at Smoke & Mirrors (a Tag company) in Bangkok. Featuring the amazing voice of Ray Winstone as Ray the rug the short film is unforgettable”.

Ray Winstone added, “The decline of Wild Tigers is a sad reflection of what is going on in our world today. We are supposed to be the intellectual beasts of this planet, yet we often prove to be the most barbaric species of all.”

Simon approached award winning film production agency `Smoke and Mirrors` part of the global Tag group to help bring the concept to life.

Mohammad Ali Shakeri, director shared, “When Simon and Steve approached us with the idea, as animal lovers, we were really motivated to lend our skills and experience to help save these magnificent creatures. We had to study tigers in depth—different species, their anatomy, how they move (especially regarding facial expressions), and this informed how we were going to rise to the different technical challenges we would face. Once we heard the recording from Ray Winstone, we knew how important it was to translate the emotion of the performance into our visuals and we all feel proud of the outcome." Ash Smith, managing director of Tag, South East Asia, added “The team did an amazing job to bring Ray the Rug to life, the realism and detail is exceptional and it’s great to support a great cause so a big congratulations to everyone involved.”

With as few as 4,900 tigers left in the wild globally, the world’s most popular and iconic species has lost 96% of their historical habitat. In recent years they have become extinct in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam and now perilously close to extinction in China, Malaysia, Thailand and Myanmar - driven heavily by the illegal wildlife trade.

`Save Wild Tigers` and partners have plans to screen the film globally across multiple digital platforms and media channels, countries and audiences over the next 24 months.