Rain in the making

by Umangi de Mel

The theme being 'protection', the blue sky tore open abruptly giving folks in the vicinity a pleasant surprise. 'Chandrika Bandaranaike' Mawatha in Malabe experienced heavy rains all day long when Thusitha de Silva and his team shot the latest insurance advertisement, a brainchild of Upali Herath Managing Director, Cooperative Insurance Company.

The ad is being telecast on Rupavahini during the eight 'o clock news bulletin.

'The artificial rain was created using rain towers and the characters including our team got drenched the whole day. It was very difficult because the group had to adjust to two different conditions of weather at the same time.

You may be all soggy and wet this minute but the next you'll be warm and dry.

Doing an ad is a challenge where you have to convey a message within 30 seconds. You've got to think of the visuals which are not connected. All in all it's an interesting job", says Thusitha de Silva, director.

The winner of the Raigam award for best director 2006, Thusitha has already proved his potential as a director having done about seven popular teledramas, "Uththamavi and Punaragamanaya were very popular and my teledrama 'Punchi Rala' won me the Raigam award. I actually started my career as a director with a stage play called 'Para Vasa Etha' (Road's closed) in 1979 which was reviewed by Ajith Samaranayake at the Observer.

I've also done a short film called "The great way". Having directed about 150 documentaries on various subjects so far, Thusitha's latest teledrama is professor Nimal Senanayake's 'Kinnara Damanaya', "I'm also doing Jathaka stories on ITN called 'Paramitha'. I'm happy I was able to bring our ancient Jathaka stories on television with the help of Peoples' Bank, its producer".

Having done 25 advertisements so far, Thusitha says the Insurance ad was quite an interesting me. "The ad was produced by Creative Circle Lanka Private Limited. a lot of people seem to like it.

Considering the amount of energy we wasted for a full day on a 30 second ad, the response is quite satisfactory.

I must thank Mohan Karunaratne, Marketing Manager, Cooperative Insurance Company for his full corporation.