Dark Room
A film by Johnny Hardstaff

Part of the Parallel Lines project from Philips Cinema and Ridley Scott Associates.

Five short films. Five genres. Five of RSAs hottest directors. One unifying piece of dialogue.

Dark Room

An investigator zooms in on his subject in the future film noir sci-fi thriller with a dark secret at its core. Directed by Johnny Hardstaff

Johnny Hardstaff

His most notable works to date remain the politically provocative shorts films, History of Gaming and Future of Gaming, which have now been inducted into the National Film Archive. Hardstaff also famously created the experimental music video Like Spinning Plates for Radiohead, and is responsible for a raft of innovative, contemporary, design based commercials for leading brands.

Jun and the Hidden Skies
A film by Hi-Sim

Part of the Parallel Lines project from Philips Cinema and Ridley Scott Associates.

Five short films. Five genres. Five of RSA’s hottest directors. One unifying piece of dialogue.

Jun and the Hidden Skies

Jun meets the dragon in the animation adventure. Directed by Hi-Sim

Hi-Sim

The pseudonym of directing duo Chris Hawkes and Cheun Hung Tsang, their work consists of live action and computer generated imagery. They were recently featured in Boards magazine as one of the top 20 directors to watch out for. They have directed many commercial projects for brands including Adidas, Stella McCartney, Bacardi and Investec Specialist Bank.

The Hunt
A film by Jake Scott

Part of the Parallel Lines project from Philips Cinema and Ridley Scott Associates.

Five short films. Five genres. Five of RSA’s hottest directors. One unifying piece of dialogue.

The Hunt

Carl sights his prey in the mystical horror. Directed by Jake Scott.

Jake Scott

Scott gained early directorial prominence with REM’s Everybody Hurts which won multiple MTV awards, a Grammy nomination and was inducted into the MVPA Hall of Fame in 2005. He has also directed videos for U2, No Doubt, Radiohead, Smashing Pumpkins, The Strokes and George Michael, and has two videos in the MTV 100 best videos of all time. In 2003, Scott won an Emmy for Best Commercial, three AICP awards and an Andy for his work on Nike’s Move. In 2005, Scott won a Silver Lion awards in Cannes for his work on Adidas in addition to winning two CLiOs for the same brand spot. Scott was nominated for a Grammy for direction of George Michael’s Flawless for Best Music Video and received three AICP awards for his work with Nike’s Magnet. In 2008, his work on HBO’s Voyeur won him a Grand Prix and a Cyber Lion at Cannes, Scott has recently completed his second film, Welcome to the Rileys starring Kristen Stewart and James Gandolfini and Academy Award nominee Melissa Leo, which has just screened at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

El Secreto de Mateo
A film by Greg Fay

Part of the Parallel Lines project from Philips Cinema and Ridley Scott Associates.

Five short films. Five genres. Five of RSA’s hottest directors. One unifying piece of dialogue.

El Secreto de Mateo

Young Mateo, his companion and their secret in the touching drama. Directed by Greg Fay.

Greg Fay

A former associate editor at both iD and The Face magazines, Fay has directed music videos for acts including Lilly Allen, Oasis, and The Streets and worked for commercial clients including Reebok, Orange, British Airways and Yellow Pages. In 2005 he wrote and directed his first short Last Trip to Cardiff on the back of which he was signed (as one half of directing partnership Ben & Greg) to Partizan Films. He joined RSA as a director in his own right in 2008 and has shot numerous commercials for the likes of The Guardian, Asda and Vodafone, amongst others. In February 2010 Greg will shoot a pilot for a BBC Wales comedy series called Dappers.

Last year director Carl Erik Rinsch was set to make his feature directorial debut with an untitled Alien prequel before Fox indicated they wanted Rinsch’s mentor Ridley Scott to direct the film. Now the young director’s new short film has sparked a heated bidding war. His short film The Gift, which was just released online yesterday, has ignited a bidding war, with Warner Bros. and Fox among the parties interested in turning this short into a feature-length film.

The short was released as a part of an experiment by the electronics company Philips called Parallel Lines, which features five directors making their own different short films, but with each film using the exact same dialogue.

The Gift by Carl Rinsch was the first short released in the series.

The other films are:

- El Secreto de Mateo by Greg Fay

- The Hunt by Jake Scott

- Jun and the Hidden Skies by Hi-Sim

And my personal favorite: Dark Room by Johnny Hardstaff

The Gift
A film by Carl Erik Rinsch

Part of the Parallel Lines project from Philips Cinema and Ridley Scott Associates.

Five short films. Five genres. Five of RSA’s hottest directors. One unifying piece of dialogue.

The Gift

A robotic manservant flees the police in the futuristic action thriller. Directed by Carl Erik Rinsch.

Carl Erik Rinsch

At just 14 years old, Rinsch had his first film shown at both the New York and Tulleride Film Festivals. Since then he has worked as a photojournalist for Rolling Stone magazine, and now as a director has received accolades including the D&AD/Campaign Screen Award for Best New director. He was fortunate to have been included in the Saatchi & Saatchi New Directors’ Showcase at Cannes. Rinsch’s work includes visually stunning and memorable commercials for the likes of BMW, Earthlink, Sprite and the SciFi Channel.

After a huge amount of attention for the award-winning interactive short film Carousel directed by Adam Berg, Tribal DDB Amsterdam and Stink Digital have created the definitive making of. Find out how they captured one frozen time tracking shot lasting exactly 2 minutes 19 seconds.

Parallel Lines is another Philips commercial on steroids, intended to promote their new 21:9 cinema proportion TV. But this project, as opposed to Carousel, was created by Ridley Scott Associates and features five directors who were each challenged to create short films in different genres using the same dialogue. The five 5 beautifully diverse films are by Greg Fay, Jake Scott, Johnny Hardstaff, Carl Erik Rinsch and animators Hi-Sim and their genres range from drama, animation, action, to sci-fi and thriller.

Sure, it’s just a Philips commercial on steroids, created to showcase their new cinema proportion 21:9 TV, but Carousel is amazing anyway. Created by Adam Berg and Stink Digital, Carousel is a prime example of the longer form advertising potential of the internet commercial, allowing for directors, production companies and branded story-telling.

If you like this check out the new Parallel Lines trailer featuring five short films by five different directors all using the same dialogue.