Press Kit

Unhinged / First brand campaign / 2026

The Unhinged Casting Call

a Libra / an aspiring Scientologist / works in finance / a skateboarder

An open casting call. Everyone who auditions gets cast.

Watch the film The story
Bella mid-air jumping rope in the campaign's raw grey studio, a sheet mask on her face Bella / Portraits of the Unhinged / Still 0994
01

The Call

Unhinged wants you (yes, you) to be the face of its first brand campaign.

Unhinged, the new protein + caffeine bar made for people who don’t believe in an off switch, is introducing itself not with a celebrity spokesperson but with an open casting call.

This is The Unhinged Casting Call: an invitation to real people to submit proof of the ways they keep going through all of what life demands of them. Get on a call by 8am / make sure the kids are fed / make it to HYROX on your lunch break / keep up with the latest TV show / keep your sanity. All for the opportunity to become the face of the brand.

The twist? Everyone unhinged enough to audition gets cast.

Shot in a deliberately raw, anti-advertising studio style, the campaign becomes Portraits of the Unhinged: a rolling series of films and stills of real, and really unhinged, brand ambassadors. The launch film brings the entire roster together for the first time, with new portraits released throughout the year.

Austin, shirtless and tattooed, tearing open a foil Unhinged bar wrapper
Shot raw / Austin / Portraits of the Unhinged
02

The Film

We hosted a casting call for the face of our new caffeine + protein bar. It went something like this.

Portraits of the Unhinged / Launch film Runtime 2:16
03

The Cast

Real people who showed up to the casting call. And all the lengths they went through / jumped over / backflipped off of / mimed / kept up with.

04

The Slash

One small mark, holding together everyone's whole, unhinged self.

Running through it all is a visual device pulled straight from the pack: the slash. It's the tilted letter in the logo, and in the auditions it strings together the full range of who someone is, one role after another, without ever asking them to pick just one.

It's the brand's ethos in punctuation: keep going. Do it all. Be it all.

Marcus in shirt and tie on a spin bike, a storm of gold confetti falling around him in the grey studio
Marcus / Still 2778

Fable no. 01 / Social series

The man at the eye of the storm

There once was a man who was flung into the eye of the storm / he took a deep breath when a “quick call” blew in at 4:58pm / learned that “quick” described the deadline, not the duration / watched the group chat become a category 5 discussion / let a stranger’s bad mood gust past without becoming airborne / watched a fresh system of chaos brewing in his inbox / knelt beneath the cloud line when his toddler declared war on shoes / noticed the change in atmosphere when the client showed up for an in-person meeting / looked up to see that the weekend was cloudy with a chance of disappearing / weathered a lunch forecast of “anything is fine” followed by six vetoes / kept his cool even when tempers around were getting hot / felt another urgent request make landfall / saw tomorrow gathering offshore / took a bite / took a breath / remembered that sometimes inner peace is simply declining to be picked up by the wind. Keep going.

Malia under a towering stack of hats, cowboy hat on top, the brim of the last one pulled down over her eyes
Malia / Still 0301

Fable no. 02 / Social series

The girl who wore many hats

The girl who wore many hats woke in her hostage-negotiator hat and talked the alarm down from 6:00 to 6:17 / put on her barista hat and made coffee with notes of panic / tried the mechanic hat, opened the hood, and hoped the car respected the hat / wore four stylist hats before choosing the first outfit / put on her girlfriend hat and texted “leaving now” from the shower / added a sprinter’s cap and arrived only emotionally late / entered rehearsal in her choreographer hat and counted to eight professionally / put on her contractor hat and declared the ceiling leak “probably passing” / wore her accountant visor and moved the same forty dollars between three accounts / took off every hat to scratch her head and momentarily think “idfk what’s going on with the air conditioner at all” / balled up her hair under her producer hat and moved tomorrow’s crisis to Thursday / came home in her chef’s toque and reheated something and called it “rustic” to excuse its appearance / changed into her relationship-counselor hat for the Great Dish Summit / lost / put on a helmet because a hat was not enough to walk the Great Dane / tried to put on her sleeping cap / glared at the hat rack / determined the many hats weren’t gonna wear her, she was gonna wear them / put that in her hat so she could keep going.

Bruce mid-stride with a steel work table balanced on his shoulder in the grey studio
Bruce / Still 1793

Fable no. 03 / Social series

The man who carried everything on his shoulders

“Oh sh*t!” cried the man who carried everything on his shoulders as he woke up already under it all / lifted himself out of bed using proper form / carried the morning because the morning was being difficult / shouldered the blame for a project he didn’t greenlight / picked up Gary’s slack / supported the team’s deck (by building it) / took on one quick favor that arrived with six attachments / bore the brunt of a group chat that refused to let a joke die / carried the torch for the family tradition / took something off his wife’s plate and placed it, carefully, on top of his own pile / groaned under the weight of the grocery bill / held his tongue / held it together / wondered when he could be held? / threw his back into it / carped the diem / brought it home / didn’t bring it up / set nothing down but still lifted everything else up / picked up the tab / picked up the pace / picked up the neighbor’s kids / picked up flowers / picked up a bar to keep going.

Isaac in a suit and tie riding an office chair sideways off a wall in the grey studio
Isaac / Still 2121

Fable no. 04 / Social series

The man who was pulled in every direction

The man who was pulled in every direction arrived early / got yanked left by a calendar invite with no subject line / jerked right by a client who called the canceled meeting “still on” / tugged backward into a hallway conversation beginning with “quick thought” / was hauled to a deadline that had quietly moved itself up / got pulled sideways by two kids who came down with two different illnesses / got roped into a text thread with the in-laws / steered toward the veterinarian for the pet hamster / got pulled into a heated dispute about the best reality TV show on right now / was shoved into the car to pick up materials for tomorrow’s (tomorrow’s?!) science fair / was dragged back by the call for dinner / pulled into an email thread at 8pm about something that’s going to happen at 9pm / was held upright by strings of willpower while he read bedtime stories / tugged to bed by the beautiful partner / tugged back gently for a glass of water / pushed, feet being the only thing that dragged now, to bed / laid down / felt the pull of tomorrow ready to take him forward. Keep going.

Diane in a red sweater mid-juggle, black and white balls dropping all around her on the grey studio floor
Diane / Still 1608

Fable no. 05 / Social series

The woman who never dropped a ball

The woman who never dropped a ball had no idea who kept throwing them / got an email telling her the ball was already in her court / juggled breakfast, the calendar, and an emergency nobody had mentioned yesterday / kept the coffee in play / fielded an email marked “gentle reminder” with nothing gentle about it / caught a mistake before it hit the floor / tossed it back without naming names / kept the meeting rolling / bounced from one call to another / took a curveball / put a positive spin on it / played hardball with the insurance company / remained, technically, on the ball / kept one on the ball, and the other on six additional fires / ran interference for a friend having a crisis / caught herself before saying what she really wanted to say / threw all of them into the air because here came another one / turned the dribble into a juggle so she could keep going.

A series of fables written for the campaign’s social channels: familiar phrases for being “that person,” told through the cast.

05

The Bar

Caffeine + protein bar / Chef-crafted 12-count boxes / alwaysunhinged.com + Amazon

Natural caffeine
75mg
About one espresso
Protein
11–14g
Depending on flavor
Fiber
7–8g
Per bar

The campaign ladders directly into the launch product: a bar with 75mg of natural caffeine, about an espresso's worth, plus 11–14g of protein and 7–8g of fiber, crafted by Head Chef Matt Paine. Fuel for people going after big things, in whatever form that takes.

Available now at alwaysunhinged.com + Amazon / Chocolate + Coffee / Peanut Butter + Chocolate / Salted Caramel

06

The Team

Brand
Unhinged
Founders
Byron Sorrells / Adam Lampell / Matt Paine / Corey Stanton
Head Chef
Matt Paine
Studio
The Circle
Directors
Anthony Tripoli / Jeph Burton / Hunter Hampton
Production
The Circle + Noted Collective
Casting
Shay Nielsen Casting
Photography
Brendan Wixted
Styling
CeCe Liu
Edit
Alexander Morales @ Trim Editing
Finishing
Blacksmith
Music & Sound
Barking Owl
PR
Alice Norcia
07

Press Kit

Watch the film on YouTube, follow the campaign on Instagram and TikTok, and download the brand assets below.

About Unhinged

Unhinged is a new protein + caffeine bar made for people who don’t believe in an off switch. Crafted by Head Chef Matt Paine, every bar packs 75mg of natural caffeine, about an espresso's worth, plus 11–14g of protein and 7–8g of fiber: fuel for people going after big things, in whatever form that takes. Unhinged is available at alwaysunhinged.com and Amazon in three flavors: Chocolate + Coffee, Peanut Butter + Chocolate and Salted Caramel. The Unhinged Casting Call is the brand's first campaign.

Press contact

press@alwaysunhinged.com

Interviews, quotes, and additional assets available on request.