Francois Girard has played the piano for years. But, he says, "I’ve never considered myself a musician. I have too much respect for real musicians to do that."
That respect inspired Girard’s feature films, The Red Violin and Thirty Two Short Films about Glenn Gould. And it also made him the perfect choice to helm the new, music-inspired PBS spots, "Birds" and "Orchestra," out of Fallon Minneapolis. "As soon as I looked at the boards, I knew I wanted to do them," says Girard of the commercials, which he directed out of his new roost, Independent Media, Santa Monica.
In "Birds," noted Canadian composer/conductor Walter Boudreau is shown at a piano, suffering from composer’s block. When he looks out of his window, Boudreau notices a group of pigeons, sitting on telephone lines in a configuration that looks very much like sheet music. He plays the notes on the piano, and the tagline appears: Be More Inspired. "Orchestra" features a classical sextet, whose emotional rendition of a Brahms piece culminates in smoking bows, snapping strings—and one musician smashing his cello like a rock star. (The tagline: Be More Passionate.)
While Girard says he’d been "pretty quiet on the commercial front," except for a few ads in his native Montreal, he was eager to work with Fallon creatives. "The spots were perfect for a director," he explains. "They’re such smart ideas. Plus it’s a noble cause; everyone wants to support PBS because of the brilliance of its programming."
The Fallon creative team—executive creative director Bruce Bildsten, art director Gerard Caputo, copywriter Mike Gibbs, head of production/executive producer Mark Sitley, and producer Tom Anderson—welcomed Girard’s creative input. "It was a very collaborative process from the beginning," Girard recalls. "We talked on the phone a number of times [before the shoot.] Then, [the creatives] landed in Montreal for ten days, and we talked every day about the spots. We made them work for all of us, discussing the details and the textures and the colors—the exact cinematic articulation."
Though the Fallon team had originally envisioned an actor playing the role of the conductor in "Birds," Girard suggested casting Boudreau. "Because [‘Birds’] relies so much on the authenticity of the character, I suggested going for a non-actor, a real composer/conductor," recalls Girard. "I knew Walter Boudreau—not that well, but I knew of his work, because he is a very important figure in the music world."
Both Boudreau and the creatives were amenable to the idea. And, Girard reports, it wasn’t difficult getting a credible performance out of the composer. "I just asked him to be himself," says the director, who did a lot of improvisation with Boudreau before he began shooting. "He’s done all those things he does in the commercial in real life. He’s paced around, he’s made paper balls out of score sheets. He’s been there."
Similarly, Girard chose real musicians to portray the sextet in "Orchestra." "They were chosen, not as a group, but one by one, to fit best the expectations for each of the characters," he relates. "Jeff Layton [of Jeff Layton Music, New York, who served as music editor on ‘Birds’ and ‘Orchestra,’ and also provided additional composition on the latter] had put together a sextet of musicians and recorded the music. Then, we found the musicians here in Montreal to synch to it.
"We rehearsed a couple of times, just to make sure everyone was comfortable with the music," he continues. "The casting process had been so instructive. Each musician brought their moment, their color, so it was as simple to shoot as it was to watch."
New direction
Spotmaking was a real departure for Girard, who typically co-writes his feature films. "As a [commercial] director, you come pretty late in the process," he observes. "When I agreed to do this project, the Fallon creative team had already figured out what they wanted to say and who they were talking to. For me, what was important was to say that, to an audience, as clearly as possible. It’s still a communication process, using cinematic language. But in the case of a feature film, it evolves in a much longer period of time. The architecture is different because the duration is different."
As new as he is to advertising, Girard has been working with a camera for 20 years. "I started out as a video artist," he relates. "I did a lot of experimental work—museum pieces and video installations." He made his first feature film, Cargo, in 1989. Shot in French, Cargo was distributed in Canada but not in the U.S. Glenn Gould, which was released in the States to critical acclaim in ’93, was initially intended as a theater project. "I was asked by Carbon 14, a theater group in Montreal, to write and direct a play," he says. "I wanted to stage some of Glenn Gould’s letters. After a few weeks of research, I decided I wanted to make a film."
A collection of vignettes based on the work of the legendary pianist, Glenn Gould garnered several Genie Awards (the Canadian version of the Oscar). Girard immediately began developing his next project with his Glenn Gould co-writer, Don McKeller. "It started out with a very simple idea—telling the life of an instrument."
That simple idea grew into The Red Violin, which was released in ’98, is a highly ambitious film, which traces the life of a violin through several generations of owners around the world. Girard’s desire for authenticity led him to shoot the $14 million film in five different countries and five different languages. "The writing, making and promoting took about five years of my life," says Girard. "It was a big run."
Susanne Preissler, executive producer of Independent Media, was a fan of the film, and its director. "Susanne called me last December, and she asked me if I would be interested in working with her," Girard says. "She came to Montreal, and we had a very nice meeting. We discussed a few projects, for which I was not available. PBS was the first time we could actually work, and it was a very nice project to start our collaboration."
Girard, who currently has a few films in development, hopes to make many more spots in the future. "I think its great to do commercials," he says. "They bring you into areas where feature films wouldn’t. It’s a great learning process."n
