British Airways commissioned Saatchi & Saatchi to create a new advertising campaign in 1989 after the airline had carried more than 24 million passengers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And it was Graham Fink and Jeremy Clarke, the creative duo who were working on the account<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They had put in a lot of effort. Around 30 scripts had been rejected by the BA team. And they had just come back to their office after one more round of an unsuccessful presentation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s when, the idea came to the team, specifically Fink almost fully formed and in a matter of minutes. Fink was staring at the floor. He cannot remember if there were shapes in the carpet, but suddenly he saw it, thousands of people coming together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And what a presentation to BA it was! After some other ideas, this idea was presented last.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A crumpled piece of paper with a sketch of a disconnected smiling mouth, an eye and a nose, as well as a written face, was pulled out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It took roughly six months after the script was written before they were given permission to make it. As a result, “The Face” happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was always a matter of whether it could be made at all. Fink and Clarke were not deterred by the fact that the plan looked hard to realise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There was no CGI then. They had to get it all on camera. There were going to be thousands of people in the ad film. So they wanted a good director.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fink wanted the famous director Micheal Cimino. And soon enough, the script was sent to Cimino. Two weeks later an answer came back, Cimino wanted US$1 million just to read the script.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That, of course, did not happen. However, a director daring enough to take it on and capture the entire thing on camera was still required, so the Saatchi team chose award-winning director Hugh Hudson instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n