Porsche Awards 2014 Winners: Andreas Bruns

For 11 years the Porsche Awards has picked out the cream of student commercial directors, rewarding innovation, style and talent. Ryan Watson surveys the 2014 competition winners, revealing the stories behind these promising young storytellers and their prizewinning spots

Since 2004, German film school Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg’s annual Porsche Awards has championed the finest emerging filmmaking talent, not just nationally, but from all over the world. A strong, longstanding relationship with the eponymous car manufacturer, along with an esteemed panel of jury members, has kept the competition going strong over the years and 2014 saw yet another horde of top-class entries.

Traditionally, three monetary prizes – €3,911 (first prize), €2,911 (second prize), and €1,911 (third prize); amounts that commemorate the classic Porsche 911 – are awarded in the first category for traditional spots up to 90 seconds and a second category, the New Ways Award, for formats such as campaigns, branded entertainment, mobile productions or trailers, offers a prize of €2,356.

Additionally, an award of €911 is given to the winner of a Special Prize and last year saw the introduction of a new Automobile category, with a €3,918 prize.

“Given the available resources of the young directors, the quality, again, was amazing!” says Robert Ader, director of marketing communications at Porsche Germany. “Not only regarding the execution, but also concerning the stories and content. We highly appreciated the large number of international entries, which amounted to more than 50 per cent.”

Ader adds “Our sponsorship of the Porsche Awards is a long-term investment to get in contact with the creative young people of the film industry.”

This year saw six very different films pick up a coveted ‘slingshot’ award along with the respective cash prize for their category. Here we look at the winning entries with insight from the filmmakers behind them.

Andreas Bruns

First Prize

LUX Save Your Skin

German, aged 32

Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg, diploma year

Representation Driven By Creatives (Germany)

This isn’t the first time director Andreas Bruns has appeared in shots as a winner of a Porsche Award. In 2013, the talented filmmaker and German native won the Automobile category with his entry, The Journey, for Mercedes-Benz. This time around, he’s upped the ante by winning the judges over with a cinematic spot for soap brand LUX.

Bruns, a student at the Filmakademie since 2009, now in his final year at the school, is as humble as ever about his latest triumph.

“Especially after sitting there in front of the big screen watching so many great talents from all over the world, I feel totally honoured to have won the Porsche Award,” he says about the thrill of collecting top prize at the latest ceremony in Ludwigsburg.

Based on a “keep it short and simple” horror theme, the spot is extremely well executed and to the point.

The film places a beautiful woman in a dark, isolated country mansion on a rainy night. Cutting to a road leading up to the house, a scary villain with a chainsaw is introduced to the scene. According to Bruns, the rest is a no-brainer, but the idea was an interesting fit for a soap product.

“It was great to combine the horror genre with a soap brand – two things that at first sight have absolutely nothing in common,” he explains. “Letting them clash with our slogan, ‘save your skin’, was definitely a fun thing to play with.”

Bruns reveals that, as a fan of the horror genre, he didn’t need to carry out much research into the subject.

“For me it was just really great to put an ironic twist on all those well-known scenes of this genre.” Scouting a location wasn’t a problem either; he’d already considered the American-style house for another project before the LUX script came about.

The typical horror feel is made more genuine with the use of a 1950s theme and the decade tied in with the brand’s history nicely.

“Those were the good old days when not just LUX but also B-movies had their biggest successes and well-known actresses like Doris Day, Grace Kelly and Audrey Hepburn became the face of the brand.”

As for the characters in Save Your Skin, it was important to find polar opposites to represent the good and the bad to make the story as convincing as the production.

“The most important thing was to find a person who was capable of setting the sensation of pure evil from the first moment,” explains Bruns. “Luckily, with Hagen Oechsel, we found the perfect match for this role. And, of course, we were pretty happy with Amo Völker representing the innocent beauty.”