In the middle of shooting five spots for MTV via Modernista!, Boston, director Brian Beletic of bicoastal/international Satellite is talking to SHOOT on his cell phone, running in and out of the rain. "Tropical storms in L.A.," he relays. "It’s been raining on and off. We have to wait until the rain stops and then get two shots off."
But it doesn’t seem to bother him; in fact, one gets the impression that he really enjoys running around in the rain, trying to capture shots for the spots. From the moment he entered Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, Beletic, who grew up in Dallas, knew exactly what he wanted to do and how to get there. "When I was in school, everything I did was towards getting that job with MTV," he relates, "because I knew I wanted to direct and MTV seemed like the coolest job."
He was hired by MTV in 1997 as a director, and began turning out :30 promos. "I was able to direct a different project every week," says Beletic. "I’d work with a writer or developer and then go shoot it, produce the post, and then we’d be on MTV."
He says MTV was the perfect breeding ground for developing style, creativity and appreciation of a product as a whole. The experience served him well when he signed with Satellite in ’98.
This unusual 26-year-old has a fetish for military tanks (he owns one) and learning survival skills (he can read barcodes and knows the imprint of every sneaker made since the ’50s, which aids in tracking people). His latest spot effort is Reebok’s "Defy," via Berlin, Cameron & Partners, New York. Each new shot in "Defy" blends perfectly with the next. The ad features images of people engaged in various acts: dogs escape their cages, a sumo wrestler tries to springboard over a pommel horse, a soccer player dives face-first into the mud after a goal kick. Tennis star Venus Williams is there, along with a vicious cell phone made of foam, a corporate suit getting a pie in the face, a woman photocopying her posterior and a child playing baseball in a wheelchair. After each scene, the word "defy" appears before such phrases as "suburbia," "physics," "convention," "tradition," "the man," "red tape," "expectations," "envy," "description" and "the media."
For Beletic, the Reebok ad was a dream job. "That project involved a lot of shooting and a lot of people. It was fun," he notes. "Casting is one of my favorite parts, because so much of my enjoyment, humor and everything comes out of the people in the project. I have serious issues with commercialism, globalism and demand. Reebok is still a corporation, but at the same time, it has a lot of morals as a corporation, and I really liked the theme of the whole commercial."
These may not be the exact words one would expect to hear from someone who is firmly entrenched in directing commercials. "I would hate to communicate to anyone that I don’t want to do commercials. I enjoy doing commercials," states Beletic. "This world is so complex, and there are so many levels to explore. The average human being’s everyday exposure to what’s really out there is so limited. Thank God for cameras and commercial projects, music videos, and feature films to give me an outlet to experience that and communicate it."
Beletic takes the camera where you wouldn’t expect it to go—whether it’s to a green where four teens tee off, then ride away down the course on their white BMXs, in Nike’s "Golf" via Wieden+Kennedy, Portland, Ore.; or inside the mind of two pairs of jeans, separated at birth, that find each other again on the streets of a city and jump their hosts to be together, in Levi’s "Legs," via Bartle Bogle Hegarty, London.
On their way to an abandoned government building in downtown Los Angeles, just one of more than 20 locations used for the MTV ads, Beletic and crew got lost. The director wanted to use the interior of the building for its maze-like quality and abandoned government equipment. "It’s a good place to shoot because you always end up getting this really cool stuff that you’re not supposed to have, like papers and stuff," relates Beletic.
Beletic is working on a feature length documentary that showcases three diverse cultures, and has more spots and clips in the works. "I choose to pick my battles and I only do projects I enjoy," states the director. "I’m very lucky that way. I’m always having fun."
