UNITED BY THE BUCKET

TitleUNITED BY THE BUCKET
BrandKFC
Product/ServiceUNITED BY THE BUCKET - BRAND CAMPAIGN
Category A02. Script
Entrant KFC NORTHERN EUROPE Amsterdam, THE NETHERLANDS
Idea Creation CLOUDFACTORY Amsterdam, THE NETHERLANDS
Production PINK RABBIT Amsterdam, THE NETHERLANDS
Credits
Name Company Position
Jessica Kersten Cloudfactory ECD
Sandrine Le Goff Cloudfactory ECD
Florian Hollander Cloudfactory Copywriter
Vincent Versluis Cloudfactory Art Director

Write a short summary of what happens in the film

The film is all about the melting pot of cultures and backgrounds who eat and work at KFC, who don’t always have the stage. We intend to show their “original spice” with an unapologetic attitude. It starts in the restaurant kitchen with the crew, the springboard to the craziness that comes next. In a sequence of fast paced, fun, quirky scenes, we go from influencer to influencer in scenes that show them as their original selves, as they eat or wait for their fried chicken all united by the iconic bucket. The film conveys the lightheartedness of the brand, joyfully at odds with these Covid times. Instead of ending in the classic Colonel logo, we show the face of the people who represent his attitude. Because the real secret to KFC’s original recipe is not just the food, it’s the mix of people who share a bucket.

Cultural / Context information for the jury

In the Netherlands, KFC communication had been inconsistent over the years and was losing relevance. As a challenger brand in NL, previously KFC had wanted to be mainstream like McDonalds but now it was time to recognize the people who work and eat at their restaurants: a multicultural audience. We celebrate that diversity (at the core of the brand since the Colonel “sat truck drivers and millionaires at the same table”), bring people who don’t always have the spotlight, their stories, background and talent, to the forefront of the brand. Because these influencers are the true counterculture of the Netherlands and resonate with a young local audience: Joost Klein, rapper, and his YouTuber friends, StuntKabouter and Japie; Shamiro, Amsterdam night mayor; Saskia, stunt driver; Jimmy Paul, upcoming fashion designer; House of Vineyard, Vogue dancers; Jasmijn, street football legend. The Black Lives Matter movements that arose months later reinforced this choice.

Provide the full film script in English.

This is the 18th and final version of the script. As each scene was built specifically around each influencer (capturing their talent, story and personality), until we locked the final cast, every time we negotiated the participation of a different influencer, we had to rewrite the scene and adjust the whole script to make it true to them. Script We open in the kitchen of a local KFC. Cut to close-ups of the chicken being breaded, coming out of the frying machine and being placed into the bucket. The camera pulls up to reveal a KFC crew member whistling along with the song track playing in the background. Another crew member walks smiling as he brings a full bucket of crispy chicken to the drive thru window. Then he stops smiling when he notices the next customer… Through the window we at first only see the gangster look and awesome style of Shamiro (@shamirovd020). We then zoom out to reveal that he is sitting on a black unicorn. He is the Amsterdam mayor of the night, quite the original. The KFC crew member is lost for words but hands him the bucket. Shamiro smiles. The beat drops and we transition to Shamiro riding his unicorn through an inner city type neighbourhood with grungy flats. The camera pans from the horse rider to an Uber Eats Delivery guy, who is cycling towards an apartment building. Outside the building, a squad of neon lit scooter boys and girls are zooming around. In the doorway of the building we see StuntKabouter (@stuntje), he steps towards the delivery guy. Cut to StuntKabouter taking the bucket into a smoky studio in a warehouse. Joost Klein (@joostklein) is spitting some bars into a microphone, adding a layer of rap on top of the original song. His microphone is also on fire. Appie (@appiemussa) and two other members of his crew, Teun (@Tantubeats), music producer, and Alanis (@alanisbrouwers1), film maker, are casually hanging out as flatmates do. As soon as StuntKabouter walks in with the bucket, the music stops. All heads turn towards the bucket in dramatic cartoon like fashion. Everyone jumps up and tries to grab a piece of chicken. We cut to Joost munching the last piece, staring straight at him. StuntKabouter loses it. He turns into an anime Super Saiyan the size of the room. He yells and smashes his fists on the floor, causing Joost to be his unwilling victim and to ‘fall’ through a hole in the floor with the camera. The camera and Joost crash into the next floor. He lands on his back and upside down, he sees a pair of high heels dancing energetically. We reveal that the heels are being worn by a powerful strong guy. He is engaged into a battle with another Vogue dancer from House of Vineyard (@houseofvineyard). Their moves are filled with energy as they battle in the underground car park. Like a true dancer, one of them dances to the lyrics of the song, mouthing along with the track. A few more people are hanging out in the background. Then the elevator doors open to reveal an elderly neighbour. He is carrying grocery bags. He frowns and we think he is going to be angry with them… but then, he suddenly smiles and awkwardly dances along to the song. Cut to the old guy in full blown dance in the circle. He then smashes his grocery bags into the camera which makes the camera fall backwards. The camera makes a full circle, ending up on twop feet giving a panna to a defender on a street football pitch. As his friends laugh at him, and Jasmijn (@jasmijnjanssen), the female Dutch street football freestyle champion, winks, he pops into a chicken in despair. Jasmijn kicks the ball so hard it becomes rocket into space. Cut to a bench where a ghetto date is in progress. Daniel (@danielkolf), a rising young actor of Dutch serie Moccro Mafia, film de Libi and youtube serie Vakkenvullers, is chatting up the singer Zoe Jadha (@zoejadhaofficial) as they share a bucket. The music dips and we create a break for Daniels’ chat up joke. Daniel: “Wat is kip in de file?” (Nonliteral translation but same kind of humor: how do you call a bird who is afraid to fly?) Zoe looks at him, in a blasé way. Daniel: “Kipfilet, haha.” (chicken!) He cracks up on his own joke just as the rocket ball hits him in the head. The camera pans above Zoe’s bench towards the wetted-down parking lot of the retro looking KFC where our film started out. Apparently, the love birds (no puns intended) were sitting right across from the KFC. On the parking lot we see a unique car with interior neon lights drifting and making doughnuts. It looks like a hectic situation, but when we cut inside the car we see Saskia Neville (@saskianeville), a female stunt driver drifting the car in slow motion and in total control. On the backseat is Jimmy Paul (@lovejimmypaul), upcoming fashion designer, looking his fabulous self and making a strange slow- motion-in-a-donut face. The interior of the car is matching the clothing that they are wearing, à la Jimmy Paul style, while their milkshakes and fries fly around the car like a storm. In the passenger seat we discover last a huge fluffy dog wearing the brightly coloured fluffy Jimmy Paul accessory. His puffing makes us realise they are in fact not in slow motion. We transition from the car to a wide shot of Shamiro standing next to his unicorn in front of the KFC. Approvingly he looks at the spinning car. We see him taking a piece pf chicken from the bucket. The camera tracks around the bucket. From Shamiro we cut to a similar shot of the bucket, where we find the old neighbour eating sitting on the floor of the parking garage exhausted, the Vogue dancers are all sitting around him and chatting; we then cut to Zoe handing a piece of chicken to her date trying to get back onto the bench; then we cut next to the car which is now parked, Saskia is eating form the bucket and Jimmy Paul wants a piece and so does the dog in the back. We then cut to the defeated defender offering a bucket to his panna master Jasmijn; cut to Shamiro eating a piece of chicken with gusto; finally this sequence ends at the KFC counter, where we see Mo (@mo.darabyou), a 22 years old KFC restaurants manager, putting the bucket on the counter. Last spin ends on Joost , Appie and Stuntkabouter character’s Super Saiyan getting the bucket looking very happy again. We end on the animation sequence of all the originals in the film and end on the Colonel logo.