Your Shot: This Flower-Powered Spot is Guaranteed to Make You Smile

The world can be a pretty glum place these days. Just stick on the news. This jovial new film for the Flower Council of Holland takes us back to a much nicer place. A colourful place. Ad agency Kingsday and WeFilm director Basha de Bruijn set out to capture people’s real reactions to flowers - and the results are so bloomin’ heartwarming that the film will have you grinning from earhole to earhole. We don’t want to give it all away, so we’ll just say this. People can be awesome sometimes. LBB’s Addison Capper chatted with Kingsday creative director Bram de Rooij and director de Bruijn to find out more.

LBB> The brief from the client involved taking a more old fashioned approach to storytelling. How did you ensure it maintained that romantic style while still keeping it fresh?

BdR> It was actually the other way around. It started as a candid movie showing the responses of people to a bouquet of flowers. We did a test shoot here in Amsterdam and we got a ton of responses - it worked! - but in film it just didn’t work. We needed more of a story. And when we described it as mixing candid with fiction, it felt very fresh.

LBB> Basha, what appealed to you about the brief from the agency?

BdB> I just love flowers, ha! And I really liked the ‘real’ approach of the briefing. Real reactions of real people are always 10 times more interesting than fake reactions, especially for commercial purposes. I really like the fact that Bloemenbureau (Flower Council of Holland) and Kingsday had the balls to take the risk. This choice resulted in unique and genuine reactions that actors could have never delivered. 

LBB> And Bram, what did Basha bring to the shoot?

BdR> She’s the upcoming princess of style. Women love the way she makes films. And the production company, WeFilm, are the kings of real emotions. The perfect match.

LBB> Where did you draw inspiration from? It’s definitely got a hint of Amélie about it - which is an awesome thing!

BdB> Yeah! Amélie! I love that movie. And of course a hint of Wes Anderson. I really wanted it to be a bit over the top.

I put in a lot of film clichés on purpose because I really wanted to let the audience feel the difference between the ‘fictional’ and the ‘real’ parts. That way the ‘real’ parts would still would feel, well, real and sincere, so there would be no confusion if the reactions of the people were acted. It was really important for the viewer to feel the reactions were real because that was the power of the film. For me it was a challenge to merge those two styles into a film that felt like one ‘complete’ film instead of two totally different films. A hodgepodge of fictional and documentary, and that was exactly what we wanted to accomplish.

BdR> Yes. Amélie, the ultimate romantic movie and a true modern classic.

LBB> Why was it important for the film’s integrity to capture real reactions?

BdB> Only one kind of people can demonstrate what the ‘flower effect’ really means and that is real people. So there was only one way to show it.

BdR> We wanted to prove something for our client, the Flower Council of Holland. Flowers are just flowers, and flowers have been an expression of emotions since the dawn of mankind. That’s why people sometimes think they are a cliché. In our campaigns we try to prove that flowers are still special. And in this case – have their own very specific effect on people.

LBB> Which reactions were most memorable and why?

BdB> Of course it was the genuine comforting of the crying Sophie. People are so sweet. Really - just as the film says - the world can be beautiful, you only have to see it. And that was exactly what happened during the shoot. So many people were just sincerely sweet. It really warmed my and the crew's heart. And the fact that ‘The Flower Effect’ really existed was so nice to capture! When people saw the beautiful bouquet a smile appeared on their faces. Period. They just could’t help it! The magic just happened and we proved that flowers really have this positive effect on people. 

BdR> At some point ‘Sophie’ came back crying. Really crying. She was completely overwhelmed by all the people that tried to comfort her, offered her a cup of coffee or cheered her up. They were real, and we weren’t.

What struck me was that in a busy street, a lot of people notice and walk by. And then someone decides to take action and ask what’s wrong. A hero.

LBB> What kind of added pressures and problems does shooting unsuspecting people throw up?

BdB> Well a lot of time people blocked the view of the camera. So we saw great things happening but we couldn’t move the camera because it was an impressively huge telephoto lens and we weren’t flexible at all. I was in contact with the actress all the time through a wire. When the people who were, for example, comforting Sophie, blocked the view, I had to whisper - ok maybe I nervously raised my voice - “they are blocking the view! they are blocking the view! Turn around!” in her ear while she was in the middle of a really emotional scene with people who didn’t know they were being filmed. Oh what a horror it must have been for the actress [Daniela Spataru]. But she did so well! She was just amazing.

LBB> The Netherlands is the world’s leading supplier of flowers. What kind of role do they play in Dutch society and how was it for you personally to work on this campaign? 

BdB> Buying fresh flowers is part of my - and a lot of Dutch folks’ - weekly routine. It’s just part of our culture. I really, really loved working on this campaign. The theme of flowers just fit like a glove for me as a director. I just love everything that is associated with flowers. It was for sure the best smelling set I have ever worked on.

BdR> In Holland flowers are cheaper compared to other countries and it’s quite normal to buy them to decorate your house or give them as a small present. They’re everywhere. We even have ‘Holland’s Best Flower Stylist’ on TV. For me personally, as a male creative, this was probably the most feminine campaign I ever made. At some point I couldn’t trust my own gut anymore!

LBB> What were the trickiest moments during production and how did you overcome them?

BdB> Getting quitclaims! Because there were so many reactions and so many people! We had an amazing production team with both Dutch and French production assistants who would get the signatures. And our producer Wibout Warnaar was on top of it so we got a 98 per cent quitclaim rate. But there was a lot of running to get all those signatures.

BdR> The first scenes where ‘Sophie’ cries and gets comforted. We first tried it on a busy square and people stared at her, but nobody walked up to her. Then we moved to one of the side streets, and there it worked. You need the exact amount of people to get a physical response.