• by Larissa Faw , March 1, 2016

A mundane video project for a commercial flooring client has taken an unexpected turn into becoming an award-winning, documentary short. 

The film's unlikely path first started when flooring company Tandus Centiva approached agency Brunner to develop a 3-minute internal marketing video to explain how the brand's flooring sales help fund Publicolor, a non-profit program in New York for at-risk inner city youths. This project was budgeted and executed, by Brunner’s in-house production team, for $70,000. 

However, once on-site in Brooklyn, NY, the Atlanta-based creatives filming the video’s interviews—including Q&As with Publicolor president Ruth Lande Shuman and with the program’s beneficiaries—became deeply affected. 

Hence, the creative team sought the agency's go-ahead to invest an additional $100,000 to develop a 30-mminute documentary video, called “Publicolor, A Documentary Film,” that delves further into the program's services. 

Now the agency is submitting the expanded piece to film festivals. It’s already been named  “Best Documentary Short” at the Hollywood International Independent Documentary Awards. It is also up for awards at Marché du Film, Cannes; the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival Awards; and The Roma, CinemaDoc. 

"Interviewing these students—they deal with broken homes, learning disabilities, bullying—and sensing their passion for this program... we got chills," says Matt Blackburn, creative director, Brunner. "Personally, art saved my life. Iwas not on a good path as a young man. Hearing the Publicolor president describe how the little, iterative steps involved in making art, and seeing them build, can turn a troubled kid’s self-confidence around, it just rang so true. Iknew we had to get this story out in a bigger way."