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WhyHunger spot ships

For us, this one hits the bullseye: great creative serving a great client and a great cause.

Dystopian fantasy that, in a country with 16 million hungry children, is not actually so fantastic. WhyHunger is a longtime pro bono client that the agency helped rebrand from World Hunger Year. This was the 30-year-old philanthropy’s first spot.

Previewed as a rough cut on this site, Duncan/Channon’s WhyHunger PSA is now wrapped and shipping. It has been distributed to 92 stations in the top 10 US markets, and client and agency have high hopes that station managers will be enthusiastic about this eerily beautiful spot about the shameful problem of hunger in the world’s wealthiest country.

In the meantime, it is past time to extend deep appreciation to the generous legion outside D/C who contributed to making this complicated pro bono production possible. First, of course, thanks to Boxer Films and director David Roth, who knew full well what they were getting in to, and did so anyway, and then gracefully delivered vision, hard work, can-do tenacity and a skillfull 75-person crew to a multi-location shoot with a large cast — and then artfully edited the film into: 15, :30 and :60 versions. Thanks to emoto music for a custom, uniquely haunting score. And, of course, to Vendetta Post and The Syndicate for bringing their post-production expertise. Big ups to San Francisco’s own M Squared for loaning their time, expertise and facility for final mix. Finally, a loud shout-out to producer, Marc Hochman, who herded the cats so effectively and, from start to finish, just made the thing happen — all for the satisfaction of doing great creative for a great cause. The great client is thrilled. (Find out more about this innovative group at whyhunger.org.)