FRANK

Bronze Spike
TitleFRANK
BrandWESTPAC
Product / ServiceFINANCIAL SERVICES
CategoryA03. Casting
EntrantDDB SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA
Idea Creation DDB SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA
Media Placement MEDIA LAB COMMUNICATIONS Sydney, AUSTRALIA
Additional Company FINCH Sydney, AUSTRALIA
Additional Company 2 THE EDITORS Sydney, AUSTRALIA
Additional Company 3 NAKATOMI Sydney, AUSTRALIA
Additional Company 4 BLACKBIRD Sydney, AUSTRALIA
Additional Company 5 LEVEL TWO MUSIC Sydney, AUSTRALIA

Credits

Name Company Position
Ben Welsh DDB Sydney Chief Creative Officer
Tara Ford DDB Sydney Executive Creative Director
Noah Regan DDB Sydney Head of Art
Matt Chandler DDB Sydney Creative Partner
Tristan Cornelius DDB Sydney Senior Art Director
Guy Lemberg DDB Sydney Senior Copywriter
Sevda Cemo DDB Sydney Head of Integrated Content
Tash Johnson DDB Sydney Senior Producer
Chiquita King DDB Sydney Managing Partner
Topher Jones DDB Sydney Group Business Director
Bianca Cohn DDB Sydney Business Manager
Dom Hickey DDB Sydney Planning Partner
Joseph Smeaton DDB Sydney Senior Planner
Christopher Riggert Finch Company Director
Dimitri Karakatsanis Finch Company Director of Photographer
Corey Esse Finch Company Managing Director
Karen Bryson Finch Company Executive Producer
Camilla Mazzaferro Finch Company Producer
Stewart Reeves The Editors Editor
Bernard Garry ASE The Editors Editor
Billy Wychgel Nakatomi Colourist
Kani Saib Nakatomi Producer
Nick Ponzoni BlackBird VFX Supervisor
Bonnie Wilkinson-Smith BlackBird VFX Producer
Karl Richter Level Two Music Supervisor
Abigail Sie Song Zu Engineer
Jess Bonney Song Zu Producer
Kirsty McGregor McGregor Casting Casting Director
Nicoletta Rousianos The Editors Executive Producer

Brief Explanation

In this film, we celebrate the life of a great bloke with one of the all-time great moustaches. We follow his 80-odd years, witnessing a series of selfless acts, as he lends a hand to dozens of people he meets throughout his lifetime. We first meet Frank as he stops to help his future wife, then see him over the years, catching a bolting horse, conducting the local school band, saving a family in a dust storm, and setting a teammate up for his first rugby try. We follow Frank through to the end of his life and the film resolves at his funeral. Here we see the charming tribute the community give Frank, wearing stick-on moustaches to honour his memory and support his widow. An end super nods to the services of Westpac bank in the difficult financial period after the loss of a loved one.

For this spot we needed key talent who fully captured the spirit of the characters written on the page. Then we had to find their older versions for the final few scenes of the story that take place at the end of our Frank’s life. For the lead role of Frank we undertook a national search to find an actor with an affable charm and a gentle charisma, who also represented the 1950s European immigrants that are so important to Australia’s national identity. This was a key contextual detail. For his wife we needed to find an actor who you could imagine Frank falling in love with at first sight, radiating warmth and grace. Matching the personalities of the older and younger versions of these characters (not to mention the other characters from around the town) made this casting process a unique puzzle to complete.