When Big Ass Fans came to Notorious111 and Unrivaled looking for a campaign that could match the ambition of their engineering, they didn’t want another product demo. They wanted a film. So Unrivaled and Director Stephanie Halovanic answered with something closer to a manifesto. See the full project here.
The result is Give a Damn, a :30 spot built around a single, hypnotic walk-and-talk through three meticulously designed rooms, an operatic score, and a performance so precisely calibrated it could make you watch it twice.
“If you truly give a damn, ‘standard’ just feels weak.”
That’s the line. And it’s the entire brief.
The idea is deceptively simple: a hero who embodies the Big Ass Fans mindset moves through his home, using wildly over-engineered tools for completely ordinary tasks. A blowtorch to light a cigar. A chainsaw to cut a lime. A wrecking ball to sink a putt. Each action lands somewhere between absurd and aspirational, which is exactly where the brand lives.
The Approach
Halovanic’s approach, what she calls “dramatization, not demonstration”, rejects the conventions of commercial filmmaking in favor of something borrowed from live performance, editorial fashion, and painting. No green screen. No stock sets. No AI-generated textures. Instead: hand-built worlds, real craft, and a whole lot of deliberate overkill.
Big Ass Fans has always stood for precision, quality, and the refusal to accept “good enough.” Halovanic’s approach doesn’t just illustrate those values, it embodies them. Every prop, every camera move, every wardrobe choice has a rationale. This is a commercial that knows what it wants to be. And it gives a damn about getting there.
If you are interested in learning more about our work, get in touch with one of our producers.