<a href="www.storyco.tv.>STORY‘s Blair Hayes has directed a campaign for the launch of “A Different Spin” on Fuse that’s rooted in the irreverent humor of the show’s host, Blink-182 frontman Mark Hoppus. Conceived by Philadelphia agency Machinery, the campaign includes more than a dozen spots with Hoppus riffing about his new music talk show. In one spot, Hoppus sets out to interview Lil Wayne, but is surprised when a chubby white boy walks onto the set. Undaunted, he asks “Wayne” what it was like to be in jail.
Many of the spots were scripted by Machinery creative directors Ken Cills and Kristian Summerer, but some were modified or made up in their entirety on the set. In one instance, Hoppus improvised a theme song for the show based on the lyric “Mark Hoppus is the most important thing.” “Mark came up with funny stuff,” Hayes says. “A lot of what we did was improvisational, either within a take, an idea or the whole commercial. I love working that way.”
Hayes, who served as his own DP, managed to record enough funny vignettes for more than a dozen spots in just two days. “The client wanted as much as we could give them,” recalls Cills. “That’s why we immediately thought of Blair. He moves fast and we move fast. There were a couple of spots that we made up just because there was an extra person on the set and we had a funny idea. In each case, Blair simply moved the camera and got it done.”
Hayes is primarily known in advertising as a visual storyteller, but the director says that comedy comes naturally to him. “I like to do spots that are provocativeโthat provoke an emotional response from viewers, whether it makes them laugh or cry,” he observes. “That is what I look for in everything I do.
<a href="www.storyco.tv.>STORY is represented is represented on the East Coast by Laura Zinn (212) 741-0909; in the Midwest by Doug Stieber & Co. (312) 222-9595, in the Southeast by Miller Associates, (954) 563-6004; in the Southwest by Gossip!, (214) 288-2813 and on the West Coast by Kelley Class, (310) 823-9808, www.storyco.tv.
Credits
Client: Fuse. A Different Spin with Mark Hoppus.
Agency: Machinery, Philadelphia. Ken Cills and Kristian Summerer, creative directors/partners; Wayne Forchic, producer.
Production: <a href="www.storyco.tv.>STORY, Chicago. Blair Hayes, director/DP; Mark Androw and Cliff Grant, executive producers; Mary Langenfeld, head of production; Lexi Godfrey, producer.
Edit: Wood Cuts Editorial, Radnor, PA. Billy Wood, editor.