Lucky21 directing duo The Chartrands are known for creating beautiful branded narratives and applying both a design sensibility and a photojournalistic perspective to live action commercials. They’ve directed spots with fire breathers, wolves, oil workers, cobblers and, with the new RAM commercial “The Long Haul,” Latin music superstar Juanes and his hard-working crew. Here’s what The Chartrands had to say about their latest filming adventure "A Todo, Con Todo: Anthem – Ram Truck and Juanes":
Q: Juanes’ tour was reportedly the largest US Latin music tour in 2013. How long did you spend capturing what goes into being a roadie and the vehicles that support them in that task?
Actually, we filmed the final night’s show, its setup and tear down, as well as running footage and Ram trucks, all in a two-night shoot in Orlando. To create the feel of the entire tour, we broke the work up into separate segments with different roadies and covered the concert from a multitude of angles with various lighting conditions to reflect a sense of multiple shows. Juanes and his band were consummate professionals and his road crew is amazing. We used a combination of the actual sound and lighting techs along with a few actors who had roadie experience and threw them in with the real guys to help with the setup for the show and the teardown.
Q: These guys are mounting a massive show – that’s a pretty intense time to also be filming a commercial.
Yeah, the intensity and amount of material covered required a high level of pre-planning and trust from the agency team and the client, not to mention Juanes and his crew. Everyone was completely up to the challenge of running around with us and catching the action as it happened. Being able to respond real time to the chaos of a live show and make tweaks on the fly was invaluable. Because we were so closely aligned we could arrive at the same place early in the process, all the way to the end. It was very rewarding and like no other job we’ve directed.
Q: What’s easier, a rock band or directing a wolf?
Rock bands are wild, but not quite as wild as a live timber wolf. Those guys kinda just do whatever they want when they want. Although I'd give the edge to the rock band on who could trash a hotel room harder.
Q: Is there a subject you’d like to tackle next?
So many possibilities. Anything with a strong narrative really. Storytelling and human drama, big or small, is what gets us excited. Having said that, Melanie has been wanting to make a period film about railroad workers during the 1800s and I've been reading a lot about early bare knuckle boxers and the crazy lives they led. So a pretty wide array of subject matter… but always all about people and how they adapt, thrive, overcome or otherwise… the study of the human condition.
