Images flash across the screen to a driving techno beat. Businessmen play golf; scientists create; young people sit at rows of laptops. Visions of technology are luminous and bright—even sexy. Is this an ad for some hot new high-tech gadget? A car, perhaps? A telecommunications firm?
No, this is "Anthem," a spot for the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), out of BBDO New York. Somehow helmer Andrew Becker, who at the time was with Boxer Films, Los Angeles, manages to convey both a youthful, hypnotic energy and the staid authority that one would typically associate with such a venerable financial entity. That surprising duality is one of the reasons the spot has generated such positive buzz. (At press time, SHOOT learned that Becker was joining Stiefel+Company, Santa Monica.)
"It’s just different than things the stock exchange has done in the past," explains the affable Becker. "The goal was to interest people who haven’t been involved in the stock market before. … We wanted to turn it around and make [the spot] a younger version of what people think the stock exchange to be."
Bringing a fresh edge to a potentially stuffy concept is nothing new for the 32-year-old director. "I get a lot of corporate spots," he says. "I know they bring it to me to sort of—at least this is what they say—give it a fresh edge, or something a little more youthful."
Modest to a fault, Becker adds, "They know if they bring it to me, I just might be ignorant enough to bring up ideas that may seem farfetched at first, but after explaining it a few hundred times they give up and let me try."
Some of the concepts that Becker has helped "freshen up" include one of his first jobs, "Global," for MCI Uunet via DWP/Bates USA, Atlanta, which features a surreal image of thousands of paper airplanes flying through the night skies of the city. A more recent MCI Uunet spot, "Tower," exudes a certain Big Brother aura, with its striking brown tones and depressed businessmen trudging up to a massive medieval fortress. Then there’s "Borrowing," for Cellular One, out of GSD&M, Austin, Texas, which uses cell phones as a vehicle to portray images of young, hip, beautiful people having fun.
effects heavy
A number of Becker’s ads rely on visual effects to create the cool tricks and youthful appeal he’s become known for. And sometimes, he admits, it’s hard trying to imagine what isn’t right before your eyes during the shoot. "You just have to rely on different people around you, like the technical advisor, who’s assuring you that no matter what’s not there, it will go in as long as you listen to [to the advisor] correctly," explains Becker. "You do a lot of pre-visualization, sometimes on the computer, sometimes on storyboards."
One advantage to working so intensely with effects, he notes, is that it allows him to be involved in both the pre- and the postproduction processes. "Often when you’re done shooting, you take a look at the spots and they just look like pieces of a puzzle. And I think the agencies have been very smart to let me put the puzzle together first and show them the way it goes together," states Becker. "If they later want to mix it up or change it, they have the opportunity. … But I’ve been a big proponent from start to finish, which allows me to tailor the spots past the production stage."
Becker notes that his association with effects-intensive spots is a little "bizarre," since "everybody asks me if I’m from an effects house because that’s how they had to start to get into this field." On "Tower," he adds, "I just kind of learned as I went."
Nobody could ever accuse Becker of being a slow learner. In fact, his career trajectory, given his background, has been nothing short of meteoric. He never formally studied film. He was an American history major at the University of Pennsylvania, where, he recalls, "People would make jokes and say, ‘Are you gonna teach or go to law school?’ All my friends were either going to law school, getting an MBA, or were already investment bankers. I thought it seemed like a pretty boring way to go."
Straight out of school, Becker landed a job as a researcher at ABC. He eventually became an associate producer, and worked in the network’s news and sports divisions. He got his first directing gig at age 24, when he was sent to Cuba to do a documentary on Castro. "I wasn’t the lead director on the job, but there were five hours of programming, so each of us had to accomplish a lot of stuff," Becker explains. "I would say I was real nervous. I was winging it."
But Becker’s familiarity with the world of research—after all, he’d spent the last two years of his life writing a thesis—made his task a little easier. Wanting to try a different approach, he moved on to MTV and worked on sports programming. Apparently he was learning pretty fast; before leaving television to direct spots, he won three Emmys: two for sports and one for a documentary about ghetto kids who became jazz musicians.
Clearly never one to be put off by a challenge, Becker cites his most difficult shoot, NYSE’s "Anthem," as one of his favorites. "It was one of the more exciting things," he says. "We were trying to go against an air date that was nearly impossible, so everybody became a tight-knit group."
Becker also cites "Boardroom," for Cellular One, as an enjoyable shoot. The spot is simple and differs in style from much of his other work. Pitching the company’s family talk plan, it depicts a boardroom meeting in which one unfortunate participant has to keep fielding incoming calls for his children on his cell phone. "It’s nice to get to work with talent," Becker opines. "More often than not, because I’m in the realm of doing special effects, performances aren’t the focus; so when I do get a performance, it’s nice to be able to relish that and work with the actor."
Becker’s desire to work with talent fuels his goal of eventually doing feature work. He did have the opportunity to direct a short financed by Sony, called Paperlillies, which screened at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival. "I think it was well received," he laughs. "You never know at Cannes who’s telling you the truth. It was picked up by the Italian media as well as the Germans."
Becker recently wrapped AT&T’s "New Way," via FCB San Francisco. He hopes to helm a feature at some point, and says that someday, "I definitely have to win a Clio. I have to be thought of as someone who came and made a mark and stayed for a long period of time. I’m definitely not in this for the short run."
