When SHOOT spoke with director Alfonso Cuarón three days after "Fish," a Public Broadcasting System (PBS) spot he directed for Fallon, Minneapolis, won the seventh annual primetime Emmy Award for best commercial, he had only just gotten the news. "I found out just an hour ago," he laughs. "I’m way behind."
Cuarón, who is represented for spotwork by Santa Monica-based Independent Media, was in the midst of shooting the feature film Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban in London when the winner of the Emmy Award for best commercial was announced on Sept. 13, at a ceremony held at the Shrine Auditorium, Los Angeles—hence the delay in getting word to him.
Once the director did get the news, he hardly had a moment to absorb the information, let alone celebrate. "I was in the middle of thirty people asking me questions about the special effects we are going to do tomorrow," Cuarón shares, noting, "As we speak, this is the moment I am enjoying it. It was absolutely a great honor, a great surprise. I’m very proud of it."
Part of PBS’ "Be More" campaign, "Fish" depicts a goldfish leaving the safety of his fishbowl and leaping out a window to the street below. The adventurous goldfish jumps from puddle to puddle on the street, then into a bottle of water that is loaded onto the back of a delivery truck. As the vehicle drives across a bridge over a river, the goldfish jumps out of the bottle and dives into the rushing water where he swims upstream with the salmon. The goldfish was inspired to take part in the journey after seeing the salmon on PBS while watching TV from his fishbowl. The spot ends with the tagline, "Be more empowered."
Cuarón also directed another spot in the PBS "Be More" campaign called "The Emperor’s New Clothes," which follows a contemporary world leader as he makes several public appearances in the nude. No one around this powerful man has the guts to tell him he isn’t wearing anything until a little boy finally speaks up. "Hey, you’re naked," he says to the politician, who is shocked to hear the truth, and immediately covers himself up while everyone around him looks away.
GO FISH
Cuarón does not direct many commercials. "In all honesty, my priority is the film work that I do," he says. The Mexican-born director’s film credits include the aforementioned Harry Potter flick, as well as Y Tu Mamá También, Great Expectations and A Little Princess.
If he is going to direct a commercial, it needs to be something that he finds interesting. "In that sense, I’m picky," Cuarón remarks. "I’m not interested in only setting up beautiful shots or trying to create an aesthetic. I’m more intrigued by the storytelling aspect of the commercial or the conceptual aspect of the commercial."
When Cuarón first learned that Fallon was interested in having him direct spots in the PBS "Be More" campaign, he said he couldn’t even consider doing the job because he was in the midst of writing a film. "I said, ‘No, forget about it. I’m writing,’ " he recalls, but his advisors urged him to consider the job. "They said, ‘You have to read these because they are not conventional commercials,’ and when I received the concepts I was blown away."
Cuarón was impressed by the uplifting nature of the ads. "It was not about selling or convincing anybody to buy anything," he says. "It was about two beautiful concepts done in an amazing storytelling kind of way. The moment I received them I said, ‘I have to do these.’ "
Fallon allowed him to flesh out the concept for "Fish," according to Cuarón, who said the initial idea was simple. "It was: ‘the fish jumps out of a fishbowl and goes through different scenarios until it reaches a river,’ but it was not specific about which events were going to happen," Cuarón relates. "I boarded the whole thing, and I presented it to them, and they liked it."
Upon completion of the shoot, the creative team at Fallon shepherded the job through post. "I think that is the American style [of working]. You shoot, and then later on you learn that you were nominated for [an Emmy]," Cuarón quips.
While the director was not involved in the edit or music selection, he said he thoroughly trusted the team at Fallon to do the job right. "From the get-go, we had an agreement on the tone," he says, "and that’s an important thing."
Aside from the PBS work, Cuarón’s commercial reel includes the Nike spot "Footwork," out of Wieden+Kennedy, Portland, Ore. The ad centers on a man who can perform all sorts of tasks with his feet—even grasping a spoon in between his toes and feeding himself cereal. The quirky spot is quite different from the style and tone of Cuarón’s PBS work. "They wanted something very understated and very realistic," Cuarón says of the Nike job. "I see most things in filmic terms, and a spot like ‘Fish’ had a more magical quality like Harry Potter or A Little Princess. The Nike [spot] was more like Y Tu Mamá También."
In "Birth," a spot for Pacific Bell out of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco, we see a woman delivering a baby. A man by her side coaches her through the process. After the baby is born, a nurse goes to hand the newborn to the man. "I’m not the father," he says.
"We just met in the hall," the new mom explains.
So where is her husband? Cut to a shot of him at home. Unaware of the fact that his wife has already left the house, he is sitting at a computer downloading directions to the hospital. "Fast downloads. Another reason to get DSL from Pacific Bell," a voiceover announces.
Cuarón said he was drawn to the Pacific Bell "Birth" assignment (he also directed a Pacific Bell spot called "Skunks") because of the storytelling nature of the spot, as well as the chance to work with DP Piotr Sobocinski (who passed away in 2001). Cuarón pointed out that getting the chance to collaborate with different DPs is another reason he likes to direct spots. "I use that opportunity to work with people that I have always admired and wanted to work with," he says, adding, "I had a chance on ‘Fish’ to work with Harris Savides. I have always admired his work."
In the feature film world, Cuarón has worked extensively with DP Emmanuel Lubezki. "We grew up together, and we have a telepathic communication," Cuarón says. Incidentally, Lubezki was not available to serve as DP on Harry Potter, so Cuarón is working on that film with Michael Seresin.
At the time SHOOT spoke with Cuarón, he was 137 days into shooting the highly anticipated third installment of Harry Potter, and had three more months to film. As you might imagine, the project is all consuming. "Every night at the end of the shoot, I have to be editing. I eat dinner in the cutting room," Cuarón says. Indeed, there is no time to waste; the film is scheduled for a June ’04 release.
After Harry Potter wraps, Cuarón will be available for spotwork again. "But first, I’ll need to do nothing for awhile," he says, cracking, "Fundamentally, I’m a very lazy person, so I don’t like to work."
That said, Cuarón knows he won’t be able to resist a solid spot concept when one comes his way. The director admits, "If an interesting concept comes through, I know I’ll say, ‘It would be great to do this.’ "
