Cityscape

Video: How a Texas Candy Commercial Turned into a Short Film on Detroit

October 20, 2017, 1:22 AM by  Allan Lengel
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Attorney Jimmy Rubiner, 90, was the sole actor.

This is a tale of how a candy commercial morphed into a touching short film on Detroit featuring a local 90-year-old actor.   

Kiran Koshy, the creative director for Innocean World Wide, an ad agency in Huntington Beach, Calif.,  was tasked with doing a long-form commercial for a small candy company, Atomic Candy in Denton, Tex. 


Kiran Koshy

Koshy had the concept, and it included filming in Detroit. A friend put the bug in his ear about the Motor City and Koshy couldn't shake it.

So, he turned for help to Amy Krause, a southern California free-lance advertising and content producer, who grew up in Metro Detroit. The two had worked together in the past, and as Krause tells Deadline Detroit:  "My family has been in Detroit for generations and I am the poster child for 'Say Nice Things About Detroit.'” 

"I told him there was no way he could go to Detroit and shoot without me." 

A location scout narrowed the filming locations to two abandoned Catholic schools in Detroit that had been run by the Archdiocese.  Koshy, Mike Jensen, a director of photography, and Krause, came to Detroit and picked one of the schools. (A condition of shooting in the school was that they wouldn't disclose the name or the location).


Amy Krause

Krause knew just the right person to star in the commercial: James Rubiner, a 90-year-old family friend in West Bloomfield who still practices law. Rubiner, a 1944 graduate of Detroit Central High, says he did radio during World War II and was an extra in a  2005 film titled "The Big Empty," which starred his niece, Selma Blair.

They filmed the commercial for eight hours in the last week of April. 

"At 90 he had more energy and stamina than the rest us," Krause says of Rubiner. "It was so exciting to show Kiran and Mike my home town, to meet the wonderful people doing great things."

Rubiner says: "I thought it would be fun and it was."

The 2 minute, 35 second commercial shows Rubiner walking through the abandoned school, saying nothing, but clearly reminiscing as he strolls around  the halls, the gym and the classrooms. Then at the end, he sits at a school desk, grabs an old piece of gum stuck underneath, pops it into his mouth, closes his eyes and begins laughing, as if the flavor has brought back a burst of wonderful memories.

The commercial ends with the slogan: "Your gum is waiting for you." Then the Atomic Candy logo flashes with the words: "Everything your mouth desires." 


The candy commercial.

Koshy says he fell in love with Detroit and wanted to turn the commercial into a short film with a positive message about the city. He hopes to show it at film festivals.  

"It was just such a magical place," he said of Detroit, naming some highlights including his visit to the Fisher Building on West Grand Blvd.

So he created another version titled "Alma Mater," by simply removing the candy slogan and replacing it with the words his boss, Eric Springer came up with:

"A true city lives forever in the hearts of those who lived in it. Detroit Forever." 

"I love it," Koshy says. 

Alma Mater. A short film. from Kiran on Vimeo.



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