Crush, Toronto and Random House Canada have come together to create nine clips to promote Douglas Coupland’s latest novel The Gum Thief.
This project, which brings selections of the novel to life in creative short clips, is the first of its kind for both Random House Canada and Crush.
Three of the clips have just been released on YouTube. The remaining six clips will be released over the course of this month.
The narration, on all nine clips, is by Douglas Coupland himself.
General note from Crush, Toronto:
Back in the summer, we talked to our good friends at Random House Canada, about doing something for Doug Coupland's new book. Didn't know what, just, something. We had done some work before for Souvenir of Canada, a pop-culture biographical rumination on well, you have to see it, and should really. Back to The Gum Thief. We wanted to do a series of short pieces, which would then find their way out into the world the way all things do now. There are three series, featuring passages from the novel. Roger and Bethany are the two main characters in the novel, and Glove Pond is the novel within the novel. We shot in an unspecified office supplies store, taught ourselves how to animate piles of staples and took a crash course in mid century advertising. Doug Coupland does the narration for all of them and Dave deCarlo from Sons and Daughters helped us out with sound design.
Additional comment from Crush’s managing director/creative director, Gary Thomas:
First off, we loved the book and we all love Doug’s work. We felt that the nature of the narrative lent itself to a less traditional form, and we thought Doug’s readers would be visually sophisticated and net savvy enough to appreciate this approach. We wanted the three strands to have a unique look, but when viewed as a group would feel coherent. Our designers, Stefan Woronko, Adrian Lawrence, Chris Rolf and Greg Dunlop each used a wide variety of techniques, and brought their varied design aesthetics to their pieces.
The Gum Thief is a story of love and looming apocalypse set in the aisles of an office supply superstore.
More on Douglas Coupland here
http://www.douglascoupland.ca/
Credits:
Title: Roger: Part 1
Client: Random House Canada / The Gum Thief
Creative Director: Gary Thomas
Producer: Patty Bradley
Director: Gary Thomas
Online/compositing: Greg Dunlop
Production Company: Crush, Toronto
Sound Design: Dave deCarlo
Random House: Sharon Klein
Title: Bethany: Part 1
Client: Random House Canada / The Gum Thief
Creative Director: Gary Thomas
Producer: Patty Bradley
Directors: Adrian Lawrence, Chris Rolf
Online/compositing: Greg Dunlop
Production Company: Crush, Toronto
Sound Design: Dave deCarlo
Random House: Sharon Klein
Title: Glove Pond: Part 1
Client: Random House Canada / The Gum Thief
Creative Director: Gary Thomas
Producer: Patty Bradley
Director: Stefan Woronko
Online/compositing: Greg Dunlop
Production Company: Crush, Toronto
Sound Design: Dave deCarlo
Random House: Sharon Klein
