Tongue’s Jonathan Pease directs brand-funded short film starring YouTube sensation Sarah Ellen

Jonathan Pease steps out from his regular duties, as the executive ideas director of Sydney creative agency Tongue, to direct his first short film.

Room 317 is a story about a young girl caught in a perpetual loop, or as it says on the YouTube description, a never-ending nightmare. The online film brings together several digital influencers including fashion it-girl Margaret Zhang, makeup maestro Max May and the star of the film, YouTube sensation, Sarah Ellen.

Pease conceived the film with Sarah Ellen and acquired funding for the project from several brands including QT hotels, Chupa Chups and Swarovski.

VIEW THE FILM

On the surface, Room 317 is a beautiful piece of film but there’s something far more sinister going on just under the surface.

Pease explains: “Room 317 is a comment on the relationship people have with social media. The lead character’s mood and persona changes relentlessly throughout the film, which represents the way people change their public image on social media by using filters, retouching and only posting photos of themselves when they’re doing something that will make others jealous. Social media can be a slippery slope and this film is an abstract cautionary tale”

Along with the main film, the team created bespoke executions for all of Sarah Ellen’s social platforms including mini films for Vine, longer form teasers for Snapchat, and15 second trailers for Instagram.

Adds Pease: “Sarah was the perfect person to make this film with. She literally grew up on social media and has lots of unique insights that were vital to the film making process”.

The film was only launched a little over a week ago at a private screening for 80 VIPs, media and influencers but it’s already gaining traction with over 280,000 views on YouTube and around 2 million interactions across social media. As an example of scale, every time Sarah Ellen posts a snap about Room 317 (on her Snapchat) she’s getting around 50,000 views. Before the film had even launched, the campaign had already reached over 300,000 engagements from behind the scenes content alone.

Says Sarah Ellen’s manager, Maddison McKay, who pioneered digital talent management in Australia by turning local names such as Nicole Warne, Margaret Zhang and others into international stars: “Creative and bespoke partnerships with a strong idea behind the content is how we always try to work with brands. Room 317 was a perfect opportunity to do exactly that with Sarah. The ‘sponsored post’ bubble can only go on for so long and that’s not how we work with brands.”

Clients – Swarovski, Chupa Chups and QT Sydney