Back when he worked for Comedy Central in 1995, Andrew French had a problem with a co-worker. The guy sitting in the office next door, Nick Spooner, enjoyed playing Mahler on his stereo loud enough that French could hear it, too. "Our offices were right next door to each other and I couldn’t stand the music Nick was listening to," he remembers, "but I had no choice."
But rather than asking him to turn down the volume, French had a different idea: He rewired Spooner’s stereo to play in his office as well so he’d have some control over the tunes. Little did he know at the time that he was tuning in to a turning point in his career. Thus began a duet that has taken the directing team known as Spooner/French, who direct spots via bicoastal The Artists Company, far in the world of commercial production.
After they began working collaboratively as writer/directors on promotional spots for various TV networks including Comedy Central, ESPN, TNT and MTV2, they have moved on to memorable work in comedic commercials for a diverse array of clients ranging from Cream of Wheat to the Museum of Flight in Seattle. "Simulator," the spot for the museum out of Cole &Weber (now Cole & Weber/Red Cell), Seattle, which the two directed while with now defunct Satellite, landed them a slot on the Saatchi & Saatchi New Directors Showcase at the 2000 Cannes International Advertising Festival.
They recently completed the first campaign for Hyundai out of the carmaker’s new agency, The Richards Group, Dallas. (The account had previously been with Bates USA West, Irvine, Calif.) The five-spot branding campaign began airing earlier this month.
Spooner/French signed with The Artists Company late last year after the closure of Shooting Gallery Productions (SGP), the commercial division of feature film company The Shooting Gallery. Prior to SGP, the duo was repped by Satellite. After SGP closed, the search for a new roost took roughly five months. "We took a lot of time because we were twice bitten," notes French.
After meeting with many production companies, Spooner/French decided on The Artists Company because of the stability the shop offered. "They’ve really weathered every storm of the past twenty years," relates Spooner. "A fifth of the places we spoke with while we looked around have gone out of business."
Since signing on in November 2001, Spooner/French has directed spots such as "Fire Extinguisher," "Locker Room," Flaming Razor," and "How Hot," for Schick via J. Walter Thompson, New York. Additionally, the pair helmed a trio of spots—"Beach," "Driving" and "Hippie Jewelry"—for Chinook Winds Casino, out of Cole & Web er/Red Cell. The latter spot, which features a nature lover’s late father introducing him to the wonder the Oregon casino has to offer, was featured in SHOOT’s "The Best Work You May Never See" gallery.
Spooner/French most recently completed the aforementioned Hyundai campaign, which allowed the pair to do what it does best: subtle comedy. In one spot, "Family Hug," a family walks into a Hyundai showroom to buy a SUV and is so impressed with the product that they give the salesman a group hug. The spot’s last moment is its finest: the hug lasts just long enough to walk the very funny line between cute and creepy. Other ads in the package include "Donut," "Shut Up" and "Psyched Up."
Casting About
Paying attention to every second of a spot is crucial to crafting humor for Spooner/French, but the team believes an even more important aspect is casting. They have a certain type they look for no matter what kind of character they are casting; it’s not something they can or even want to define, but French may have put it best when he relates that they like people who seem "10 degrees off. There’s something to their performance or their look that seems the guy fairly normal, but not quite maybe one-hundred percent normal.
Spooner/French learned a lot about casting while still at Comedy Central, where they quickly realized that the stand-up comedians didn’t make the most accomplished thespians. "They’re not going to do things they don’t feel right about," says Spooner. "We learned how to work within the parameters of the palette you’re given."
After over two years at Comedy Central, that palette began looking a lot narrower; budgets for spot rarely went over $50,000. When they began shooting commercials, the collaborative nature of the spot world took them by surprise. "We had to go from writing anything we wanted and shooting in a very loose style to asking ‘Hey, wait, who is this guy standing by the monitor asking me a question?’ We didn’t have any concept of how the pyramid worked," explains French.
But ultimately, it was the hands-on nature of their work—particularly spending a lot of time in the edit suite—at Comedy Central that made them better directors, notes Spooner. "A lot of editors eventually make great directors because they know what good coverage is or good sound effects," he explains. "We learned the rudiments of understanding what pieces you’re going to have for your jigsaw puzzle."
Spooner and French find they work well together because there’s an almost instinctive division of labor that occurs on the set. "Sometimes I’m not listening specifically to a line because I know Nick is listening to it," relates French. "And he knows that I’m busy looking at their bodies and faces on the monitor."
Perhaps their symbiosis can be credited to their common hometown: Boston. Though they didn’t know it because they were four years apart, they both lived in the same city. Both dabbled in film production before coming to Comedy Central, but Spooner credits a more unusual part of French’s resume for boosting their helming expertise: French once worked for a year as a shepherd on a sheep farm in northern California. "Our job is to corral chaos, so it’s nice that Andy has that background," says Spooner. "But it’s always a little awkward when he whips out the shears on the set."n
