The team were impressed by Dunning's recent work for Kleenex, which stars a young girl too engrossed in a cartoon to notice her runny nose. With no tissues available, she wipes the snot away with her sleeves and bare hands, which is bound to make parents cringe up and down the country. Dunning's handheld camera, fixed on the child's face, captures her flickering eyes as she is entranced by the animated film she's watching, and her total immersion in it makes her shoddy hygiene feel both natural and inevitable. It's a messy job, but the director makes it look graceful.
His arrival coincides with an upturn in form for Crystal Palace Football Club, who asked Dunning to shoot their 2021/22 commercial. One fan struggles with a tight-fitting home top from the late Eighties/early Nineties, while others make a beeline for Selhurst Park after months in pandemic-imposed exile. Again, it's Dunning's attention to detail that makes the ad.
Last but not least, his 60" ad for the Nurses' Trust centres on a different kind of team: one with "over one-hundred-and-eighty-thousand nurses, midwives, and care assistants who work over the holidays and new year." Dunning says, "They are there for us, through thick and thin, when it matters most," and his appreciation is clear for all to see.
Reckon Alex Dunning would suit your next project? Then call Otis Denison on 020 7636 6666 or email otis@outsider.tv
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