The Game x King Palm

DP Mike Williamson · Written by Brandon Puett · EPs Kay Shoor, Daniel Kagle · Stage This LA

The reference was Modelo's Mark of a Fighter. That work holds up because the beer is not the subject, the fighter is, and the product arrives as evidence rather than as the point. I wanted that shape for what was, on paper, a product drop.

So the spot is a monologue built on his own legend. Three questions in the first fourteen seconds, all about him and none about us. What sparks my motivation. What lights my creativity. What kept me going once I reached the top. Then he answers them.

The turn is at forty seconds, and it arrives in his language rather than ours. When I need to let off steam, I keep it Rolls. The product name lands as slang, in his own sentence, before anybody has said the brand out loud. King Palm itself does not appear until forty four, in a fifty nine second spot.

That is the whole idea. You earn the last fifteen seconds by paying for the first forty four. Modelo borrows a fighter's story. We had one already, which meant the copy could stay in his language instead of ours.

Everything else followed. A stage build in Sun Valley rather than a location that would date it. Low riders, city blocks, a camera that sits still and lets him talk. Twenty five crew with a full grip and electric package and a steadicam operator, because a monologue has nothing to hide behind and has to look expensive or it looks cheap.

The lockup is two names and a period. The Game. And King Palm.