So misunderstood, and for so many years. Turns out, all Frankenstein needed to shed his monster image was a little nutritional joint care supplement called Osteo Bi-Flex. And now, thanks to the Rexall Sundown product, the old stiff is leading a happy, limber and—aside from the greenish skin tone and neck bolts—basically normal life.
All of which makes him an ideal spokesman for Osteo Bi-Flex. As Frankenstein himself points out in one of two testimonial-style ads, "If it can help me, imagine what it can do for you."
Osteo Bi-Flex’s "Frank" campaign, which comprises "The New Frank" and "Frank’s Morning," was created by Cramer-Krasselt, Milwaukee, and directed by Bennett Miller of bicoastal/international hungry man. The latter ad is slated to break in July, while "The New Frank" debuted last month.
"The New Frank" opens with footage of the old Frank—specifically, a scene that looks to be from James Whale’s classic 1931 film, Frankenstein. Actually, the black-and-white footage was shot for the campaign. In it, Frankenstein is seen in a dark, medieval lair. Candles glow and shorted circuits set off sparks as the monster walks rigidly forward, arms outstretched.
"That was me," begins the voiceover. We cut to a sweater-wearing, soft-spoken, contemporary, in-color Frankenstein. "What a stiff," he says with charming self-deprecation.
What follows is all too familiar to television viewers—the testimonial pharmaceutical spot. The humor comes from the fact that Frankenstein is giving the testimony. As the now limber monster talks about the merits of Osteo Bi-Flex, he’s seen enjoying a variety of activities. "My aching joints made it hard for me to get around, so I tried Osteo Bi-Flex," he tells viewers, as he’s seen taking a yoga class, gardening, playing the banjo for a room full of kindergarten-age kids and practicing Tai Chi in a green field.
"Osteo Bi-Flex has helped so many renew their joints and their lives," Frankenstein says earnestly. "It’s not temporary relief. It safely lubricates joints, so over time you’re more flexible and comfortable." The spot ends with a typical close-up product shot. "Osteo Bi-Flex, from Rexall," continues Frankenstein’s voiceover. "Put some life back in your joints."
THE CONCEPT
Neither agency copywriter Sandy DerHovsepian nor art director Matt Herrmann can recall the "Ah-ha!" moment when the idea of Frankenstein-as-spokesman was born. "You come up with so many ideas, and you do a lot of brainstorming," DerHovsepian said. "It may have been said as a joke at first."
Regardless of its origins, the notion gained momentum and DerHovsepian began writing the script. "It was a challenge," she noted, "because there had to be such a balance in terms of how funny it could be. It was mimicking the traditional style of testimonial ads, but you want to make it interesting, but you [also] can’t make it be funny, because if the script is too funny then it wouldn’t be funny."
Herrmann clarifies: "What’s funny is that it’s Frankenstein doing these things, like Tai Chi and playing the banjo. The things themselves aren’t supposed to funny."
By all accounts, it was this balance—this need to play it straight—that proved to be the campaign’s guiding principle. "The hardest part with something like this is that if you give in one percent, the whole thing collapses," noted Miller. "There can be no wink at the camera. You have to commit yourself to it—to playing for sincerity—and then everything falls into place. The way the boards read, it could have slipped into a Phil Hartman-esque type of satire—a very broad, presentational mockery. I really wanted to go away from that."
This mantra, he added, came into play at every stage of production, from casting to cutting. Naturally, the role of Frankenstein was critical. About 100 actors were interviewed for the part, and several of them were called back numerous times. Miller said the role "required a combination of physical attributes," but the actor also had to "have the right attitude toward work. It’s a physically taxing role—you’re obliged to show up at four in the morning for make-up," he noted. "We didn’t want to tolerate an actor who was going to complain. It’s also important that he be able to take a lot of pharmaceutical information and humanize it all, and be sincere and authentic. We needed someone who could exude a sense of vulnerability."
What the role didn’t require was improvisation. "Something like this—a pharmaceutical—there are so many legal concerns that it’s wall-to-wall copy," Miller noted. "Even though it feels like it’s delivered at a tempered and civilized pace, there’s no breathing room to play with lines." However, Miller did work with the actor, David Combs, before various scenes to help him get in character. "It was more improvisation for his benefit, to help find the character rather than to find any lines," the director said.
FRANK’S NEW LOOK
It was decided early on that the movie footage would be re-shot rather than licensed. "We wanted to be sure that the black-and-white Frank matched the contemporary Frank," explained agency producer Mary Pat Cupertino. "The make-up guy, Ed French, was so good we probably could have used footage from the film, but we didn’t know that going in."
Getting footage of the old Frank—which comprises only a few seconds in each of the ads—was nonetheless a significant part of the production. His lair had to be built, and there was a page or two of guidelines to follow in terms of authentically recreating the character. French explained, "Universal Pictures [which owns the character] was very specific. There are very distinct bolts at the neck, an input and an output. There’s the scar over the right forehead, and the scars on his wrists. The fingernails had to be blackened, and the color of the skin is yellow-green."
Wardrobe was also essential. According to Miller, wardrobe stylist Bic Owen managed to find the same pair of platform boots worn by actor Boris Karloff in the original film, which lent both height and a clunky stiffness to the character.
French, for one, was pleased with the result. "You know you’ve succeeded when the character walks in the room and everyone wants their photo taken with him," he said.
The shoot took place over three days on location in Los Angeles. DP Tami Reiker shot the old Frank footage on 16mm Tri-X reversal black-and-white stock. The contemporary in-color character had all the same physical attributes as the old Frank, but they were softened to look less menacing. His wardrobe also changed from an all-black ensemble to a more casual outfit.
For the contemporary scenes, the essential decision to be made was how green Frankenstein’s skin should be, and there was much deliberation in postproduction. "Finding the right color green, that was a big one, because you’re dealing with a perception," noted Herrmann. "The original film was black and white, so with color, it was a question of how much is too much or too little? We struggled with that." The colorists on the project were Michael Mazur and Pete Jannotta of The Filmworkers Club, Chicago.
There was also some question as to whether the spot should have music at all. (The subtle orchestral score was composed by Larry Pecorella, David Hutten and Bryan Rheude of Chicago-based Comma Music and Sound Design.) "We decided it was important to have something to set the emotion, but we didn’t want it to be too noticeable," Cupertino said. "Comma was great."
Meanwhile, editor Michael Corrigan of Red Car, Chicago, was sifting through the various set ups, trying to decide which contemporary scenarios should make the final cut. "They were all shot with such a keen eye to making them like a true testimonial—pretty, but not over-the-top super-glossy, and slightly heart warming, not too coined," Corrigan related. "The challenge was always being on guard about whether you’re playing into the joke, and also not making it too dry, dead, boring or slow. We wanted to keep it along the lines of what another agency might have done with a testimonial ad with Joe Blow as the spokesman."
Miller couldn’t be directly involved with the edit because he was booked on another job in Vancouver, B.C., but he got a copy of the footage and worked with an editor there—Matthew Griffiths of Cycle Media, Vancouver—to develop his own cut. "I felt invested in the ads, so hungry man went to the expense of doing our own cuts—just to inform [the agency and editor] what certain intentions were," Miller explained. "I think it benefited the process."
Corrigan wasn’t opposed to the input. "As editing technology becomes easier to get your hands on, it’s something that’s more and more common," he noted. "You can choose to see it as threatening, but if it furthers the conversation, then it’s totally worth doing. Sometimes it’s just a lot faster than getting a page full of notes. You can post to the Web, and bingo, we’re having a conversation about concrete cuts. I think it can become frustrating if whoever’s throwing together their edit is doing it in an attempt to create a director’s cut, but we got the sense from Bennett that he wanted it to be part of the conversation."
In the end, the editor praised the agency’s adherence to delivering the spot they’d intended. "The agency did a valiant job through the series of revisions that we worked on with the client," he said. "They took a low-concept product genre of advertising and a high-concept approach, so it was a long process. There was a lot of inevitable back and forth, but the agency did a great job in terms of whatever was going on. We kept our eye on the ball, so there were no compromises that tripped up the spot."
