Brendan and Emmett Malloy

One campaign likely to turn up on the Film and Integrated shortlists at the Cannes Lions this year is Dig Out Your Soul in the Streets, a short documentary created by BBH, New York on behalf of British rock band Oasis.

Last summer, BBH creatives Calle and Pelle Sjonell approached Warner Music and proposed premiering an album via street buskers in New York City subway stations. The idea cleverly inverted traditional marketing strategy: make street musicians - typically the last stop in the marketing lifespan of an album - the first people to receive the music.

Record label Warner Music thought BBH's idea would be an ideal way to kick off promotions in New York behind Dig Out Your Soul, the seventh studio album by Oasis, a British rock band popular in the ‘90s but whose star had faded somewhat in the United States.

Commercial/music video directing brothers The Malloys (HSI Productions) were brought on to direct, and pre-production moved at a brisk but manageable pace until an incident occurred that is all too common in the world of rock.

Two days before the September 12 shoot date, a concertgoer attacked Oasis' Noel Gallagher on stage in Toronto. The band finished the gig, but canceled all their interviews, TV appearances and the final date on their Canadian tour. Their label couldn't reach them and The Malloys had no idea whether Oasis would show up or not.

"Up until Noel got pushed off stage, it felt like everything was skating along," says Emmett Malloy. "We were uprooted a bit but everybody rallied and bounced back."

When guitarist Gem Archer, bassist Andy Bell and vocalist Liam Gallagher stepped out of their car in Brooklyn, The Malloys breathed a sigh of relief and immediately began shooting. "It felt like a real documentary," he adds. "You just didn't know what was going to happen."

Dig Out Your Soul in the Streets has picked up a pile of ad industry awards this year, including a Grandy, a Gold Pencil at The One Show and a Gold Clio. For more insight into the rockumentary production process, Boards rang up Brendan and Emmett Malloy in Los Angeles to chat.

Why was this idea best suited to Oasis and the album Dig Out Your Soul?
Brendan: This idea could work with various bands but I think in a way it was the challenge of working with Oasis. They have such strong opinions and they're such strong personalities. We were nervous up until the moment Liam smiled when he heard the first song. In doing a documentary, you want to have that ‘Oh shit what's going to happen next?' feeling because you know you're doing something real. That adds excitement into the process. If we were doing conference calls and talking to the band weeks before, it wouldn't have had the feeling that it had.

So you had no idea how they would react?
Brendan: Sometimes [bands] don't even know they're shooting a video or what the idea is until they come on set. Someone told them about it a month ago and that was one of the 200 decisions they had to make that day. Some bands will get into it and get really involved but sometimes you get bands that show up and go, ‘This is what I agreed to a long time ago?'

You could tell that was what happened with this - [Liam] agreed to this a while ago, and probably loved the idea and then forgot about it. When he showed up that day, he probably thought he was going to walk in and look at something for five minutes and walk out, but he walked in and was really moved by it. They stayed way longer than we had thought.

Emmett: They all went to the Paul Weller show the night before and it was obvious they hadn't slept at all. It felt as though they'd cracked their last beer an hour before they showed up. I think that was working for us in the sense that they walked in there in pretty good moods. When they walked in, there were 10 different acts playing different songs off their new record. It felt like they'd walked into a tribute to their new record. You feel pretty honored and swept up in it pretty quick when that happens. From there the rest was pretty natural and easy, we just followed them around and really egged them on to communicate.

Which street musician did they meet first?
Brendan: There was a woman named Suki Rae who played the flute. She is a pure musician, an older woman and looks like the real deal. She had such a presence to her... They had a musical connection with her. If they'd walked in and saw a one-man band playing one of their songs, they probably would've punched their label person and run off.

Did working with Oasis live up to your expectations?
Brendan: It was beyond. Both Emmett and I couldn't stop standing next to [Liam] because everything out of his mouth is a gem - he doesn't hold anything back. Sometimes you work with musicians and they have a certain image and you meet them and they're different than their image but Oasis is not that way at all - they're exactly like their image.

Does your job become easier when the musician isn't so media trained?
Emmett: Throw this into a normal Oasis music video and you'll get hung up on certain things - who knows how that process would've gone... Sometimes you get hung up on conversations like, ‘Should I wear a hat or not in this performance set up?' for unnecessarily long periods. There was none of that on this project.

This experience with that band couldn't have gone any better. The way they handled it and the way all the street musicians came prepared and were genuinely excited to be involved with an idea that was very musical and true to what they are too - it made this band who's sold millions of records and is a very iconic band not a whole lot different than the lady playing the flute.