Note: This spot was developed to promote Breaking Bad on AMC for Loyalkaspar, a NYC-based agency.
The Man in the Mirror
Info-Graphic Spot
This spot essentially depicts a man looking in the mirror. This man is Walter White, a brilliant, frustrated scientist who has settled for a life of mediocrity – teaching chemistry to disinterested high-school students.
The view in the mirror is Walter’s view of himself. The spot begins when he discovers that he has cancer. The image he sees in the mirror is a weak, broken, puking man. Defeated by life. But not for long. From this shell of a man emerges a powerful alter-ego, Heisenberg. Walt’s doppleganger. His darkside. He cooks, deals, murders, manipulates, clutching to life by standing closer and closer to death.
The style of this spot is graphic collage- with photographic elements, but not live-action. Typographic callouts- drawings, images of other characters hovering behind him, clippings, maps, 3 dimensional objects appear in the picture when they are needed- to paint a purely emotional portrait of Walter White, the man, the maniac.
| Video | Audio – VO |
| Walt and his reflection. | WW: Chemistry is, well technically, chemistry is the study of matter. But I prefer to see it as the study of change. |
| Cut away Walt- See his tumor. | Dr. Belknap: You understood what I just said to you?
WW: Yes. Lung Cancer. Inoperable. |
| Meth = Death
Winnebago |
Jesse: You want to cook crystal meth? You and, uh… and me?
WW: Buy the RV. We start tomorrow. |
| Walt the teacher in his tightie whities. | WW: Volumetric flask is for general mixing and titration. Did you learn nothing from my chemistry class? |
| Chemistry- fumes kills guys with guns.
Walter choking Crazy 8. |
Jesse: Hey, what’d you do to them.
WW: Red phosphorus in the presence of moisture and accelerated by heat yields phosphorus hydride. Phosphine gas. One good wiff, and phewf… |
| Heisenberg transformation.
Tuco beats Jesse: Explosion. Montage of Heisenberg the killer scenes. |
Tuco: What’s your name?
WW: Heisenberg. Tuco: Let me get this straight. I steal your dope, I beat the piss out of your mule boy, and you bring me more meth? That’s brilliant. WW: You got one part of that wrong. This is not meth. (explosion) |
| Tears in Walter’s eyes. Family. The utopia falls apart. | WW: Alright, I’ve got the talking pillow now… Okay?
Look, we all in this room, we love each other. We want what’s best for each other and I know that, I am very thankful for that. What I want… what I want, what I need… is a choice Skyler: Well make the right choice, you are not the only one it affects. What about your son? Don’t you want to see your daughter grow up? |
| Blue crystal cook. Lab. Fly. | WW: This fly is a major problem for us: It will ruin our batch, and we need to destroy it and every trace of it so we can cook. Failing that, we’re dead. |
| Bodies in drums stacking up everywhere. | WW: You see, hydrofluoric acid won’t eat through plastic; it will however dissolve metal, rock, glass, ceramic. So there’s that. (body) |
| Death of Jane from Heroin overdose.
Ricin. Jesse and Walt fist fight. |
Jesse: I am not turning down the money! I am turning down you! You get it? I want NOTHING to do with you! Ever since I met you, everything I ever cared about is gone! Ruined, turned to shit, dead, ever since I hooked up with the great Heisenberg! I have never been more alone! |
| Car wash with cash stacking up all over the place. | WW: Here’s you receipt and just hand this claiming disk to your car wash professional. Thank you, come again. |
| Walt and Heisenberg shifting places – inseparable | WW: Who are you talking to right now? Who is it you think you see? I am not in danger, Skyler. I am the danger. A guy opens his door and gets shot and you think that of me? No. I am the one who knocks! |
| Hank – laughing, getting shot, Head on a tortoise, Hank alive and dead.
Walt consumed by cancer becomes fully Heisenberg. |
Hank: You killed ten witnesses to save your sorry ass. You bombed a nursing home! Heisenberg… Heisenberg! You lying two-faced sack of shit!
WW: Hank, my cancer is back. Hank: Good. Rot, you son of a bitch. WW: I’m sorry you feel this way. I want to beat this thing, I do. Hank: I don’t know who you are… I don’t even know who I’m talking to… WW: If that’s true… If you don’t know who I am, then… maybe your best course would be to tread lightly. |
| Both Walts become Heisenberg. The darkside triumphs.
End Tag: AMC (logo) Something More |
Skyler: There’s got to be another way.
WW: There isn’t. There was. But now there isn’t. |