Newport Beach Film Fest Revisits Iconic Movie Scenes, With a Twist

Can you handle A Few Good Men’s climactic truthy courtroom scene reimagined as a tongue-in-cheek, surf-centric meditation on what it means to be a lifeguard? Naturally, a dressmaker’s mannequin washes ashore and nearly steals the show.

The Newport Beach Film Festival puts an Orange County spin on that classic movie moments in fun promos that speak to the enduring power of movies as a lingua franca of popular culture.

Next, we hit the bricks! and visit the frozen banana stand on Balboa Island, an unlikely chunk of real estate for a suitably profane reimagining of Glengarry Glen Ross.

OK, coffee’s for fucking closers—stop fucking with us, already! Fuck!

O.C. agency Garage Team Mazda supplies the local color, weaving concepts and dialogue from the Hollywood classics into fresh scenarios set in Newport Beach locales. The clips celebrate the 1992 originals in unexpected ways. They remind us that art can transcend time, space and commerce to enhance our shared experience.

The work targets the festival’s core audience of film geeks and superfans, tweaking well-known scenes often used in actor’s workshops and auditions to illustrate the event’s ties to the industry at large, agency creative lead Steve Chavez tells Muse.
 
Tool of North America director Erich Joiner shot the ads with Academy Award-winning cinematographer Claudio Miranda (Life of Pi). They created “just the right balance between the original script, which we knew the audience would know by heart, and the changes that grounded us in the situation,” says Chavez.

Now in its 22nd year, the festival runs for eight days starting Oct. 21.

CREDITS

Garage Team Mazda
Michael Buttlar – Chief Executive Officer
Steve Chavez – Chief Creative Officer
TJ Bennett – SVP/Creative Director
Kurt Brushwyler – Associate Creative Director
Zak Masaki – Senior Art Director
Jessica Mirolla – Senior Art Producer
Jeff Perino – Executive Producer
Elizabeth Carr Ernst – Program Manager
Bart Kias – Business Affairs Director
Kari Waz – Business Affairs

Production Company – Tool of N.A.
Erich Joiner – Director
Dustin Callif – President
Nancy Hacohen – Managing Director
Laura Macauley – Senior Executive Producer
Joby Ochsner – Producer
Claudio Miranda – DP
Justin Trask – Production Designer
Editorial – Arcade Edit
Paul Martinez – Editor
Dean Miyahira – Assistant Editor
Kirsten Thonn-Webb – Senior Producer
Crissy DeSimone – Executive Producer

VFX – Timber
Lisa Houck – Executive Producer
Tricia Chatteron-Goldrick – Head of Production
Ryan Dahlman — Head of Production
Brian Shneider – Flame Artist
Jon Lorenz – Graphics Artist
Adam Singer – Graphics Artist
Alice Cen – Flame Assistant

Photo Credits:
Dana Hursey – Photographer
Represented by: WSW Creative