NEW YORK– Director Ridley Scott, fresh from his latest film, 1492, and a recent Oscar nomination for Thelma & Louise, kicked off the AICP/ MOMA director lecture series held in conjunction with the recent AICP national convention here.
Rather than a prepared speech, Scott opted for a question-and-answer session which provided a clear if rather disjointed view of the director and his work. One of the most successful commercial directors to cross over into features (Alien, Blade Runner, Someone To Watch Over Me), Scott recalled his beginnings at the Royal College of Art in London.
"All of the schools in the college were of the highest level. The schools included graphic design, sculpture, car design, ceramics, jewelry design. You name it, they did it," Scott said.
Rather than staying in one particular school, Scott explained that he would shift around and inter-departmentalize. "It was the only really important period of my school life. Everything else prior to that was like a blank. I came awake at art school," Scott said.
Once out of art school, Scott began directing commercials and had soon opened RSA in London. That was 23 years ago.
"Within two years of opening the company, I decided that I wanted to do a film, so I needed other directors," Scott said.
This led to the recruitment of Scott’s brother, Tony Scott, who is also now an accomplished feature director. "I dragged [Tony] screaming out of art college. I said, ‘You can’t work for the BBC, you can’t direct bloody documentaries. Come and do advertising," Scott explained.
Scott’s participation in this visual school of advertising helped him develop his film style. "My real film school was advertising because there was no film school. It was the first time I was able to consistently lay my hands on film," he explained.
This prepared him for his first feature, The Duellists, in 1977. Actually landing the feature was a job in itself, according to Scott, and he got no fee for the movie.
"Twenty-five years ago Alan Parker, Adrian Lyne, myself, Hugh Hudson and my brother couldn’t get arrested in Hollywood," he joked. "We had the most sophisticated show reels. We couldn’t get an agent to look at them."
By sharp contrast, said Scott, "Today the studios are automatically focusing on talent from advertising and from rock videos…Now I’m going to sound like an old fart because I think what’s happened is the apprenticeship period has gone out the window." The director stressed that he spent 10 years directing commercials before making the jump to features.
To this day, Scott considers commercials an important part of his curriculum. "If I didn’t do advertising, I wouldn’t go near a film unit or an actor for probably a year," he said.
His philosophy had led to some of the most memorable commercials in the history of advertising, including Apple Macintosh’s "1984." Scott said he liked the board immediately, although he was slightly put off by the product itself– a computer. "I’m anti-tech. I light candles at home, not light bulbs. I think it’s because I work with so much hi-tech equipment during the day, I just can’t bear it," he said. "So I had no idea what an Apple computer was…It was very late in the day when I said, ‘What’s a Macintosh?’ They said, ‘It’s a computer, you asshole.’ "
