B&Q’s first commercial from Uncommon Creative Studios released earlier this month is a clever compilation of real-life footage that captures what it’s really like to live in a home - the perfect antidote to the impossible Instagram interiors we often lust after.
SixtyFour Music worked with director Chris Hewitt and the Uncommon team on the agency’s first campaign for the brand.
The film’s footage comes from 69 different cities in the UK, somehow, and arguably very cleverly, the film has managed to avoid the sentimentality of many campaigns being made during the pandemic and focus on the nuts and bolts of real life DIY.
The ad is beautifully sound tracked by the Cinematic Orchestra’s ‘Manhatta’. The original 11-minute piece took inspiration from a short film made in 1921 about the creation of Manhattan, considered by some to be the first American avant-garde film.
From a delicate opening, the track builds into a dramatic, gorgeous finale with broad sweeps of strings and piano chords at the forefront. The piece in its entirety is enrapturing. Fortunately the sixty second edit created for the ad does do the piece the justice it deserves.
The Cinematic Orchestra composed ‘Manhatta’ relatively early on in their career. Arguably an early crowning achievement for them. It’s a strictly cinematic piece with perfect immediacy, it doesn’t once feel monotonous or repetitive as one listens through the full eleven minutes and twelve seconds of the mini symphony. Anyone not familiar with the track as a whole should have a listen, it really is quite stunning.