Visigoths," a spot for Canal +, a European movie and sports channel, out of BETC Euro RSCG, Paris, opens with a medieval battle scene. A host of pelt-clad barbarians are having at each other with all kinds of weaponry. The camera pans the field, offering a view of the carnage. A tag line reads: "How do the actors play dead so well?" The director appears, calls, "Cut!" with a disgusted look on his face and the crew rushes onto the field to begin hauling actors’ bodies away. Meanwhile, another batch of thespians is herded into position for the next take, some of them crying as they ponder the unfortunate fate of the last bunch. Apparently the actors weren’t "playing dead" at all, bringing the idea of Method acting to the extreme.
The spot, helmed by Baker Smith of Harvest, Santa Monica, is meant to be funny, but it’s undeniably dark, as well. Then again, what would one expect from a deputy coroner’s son who spent many of his formative years following his mom throughout Central Illinois, taking blood samples and tagging dead bodies?
"I grew up around a lot of dead people," Smith says wryly, explaining his affinity for black humor. "Visigoths" was one of five spots that led to Smith’s win of the Directors Guild of America (DGA) award for best commercial director of 2002. "Black Bands" for Canal +; FOX Sports’ "Lightning" and "Wind" out of Cliff Freeman and Partners, New York; and BMW Mini Cooper’s "Clown," out of Crispin Porter + Bogusky (CP+B), Miami, were the other ads that made up Smith’s entry card.
Of these five, Smith declares—after several moments of hesitation—that the FOX Sports ads "Lightning" and "Wind" are his favorites. The spots, which depict calamities befalling a pair of unfortunate basketball fans, share the black humor of "Visigoths." In this case, however, it wasn’t the darkness of the spots that drew Smith, but their simplicity.
"Wind" opens with a man clad in New York Knicks gear strolling down a city street. A breeze blows off his hat. He picks it up and puts it back on, but the wind intensifies, making it difficult for him to walk. Oddly, none of the other pedestrians seem to be affected. Growing even stronger, the wind knocks the man down, drags him along the sidewalk and eventually tosses him into the air, dropping him in a heap on the other side of the street. The tagline appears: "God is a Celtics fan," followed by a graphic showing the date and time of a Celtics/Knicks match-up on FOX Sports Net.
"Lightning" operates under a similar conceit, with an unfortunate Philadelphia 76ers fan being hit by a lightning bolt as he browses the wares of a golf course clubhouse. "The simplicity of the execution, the simplicity of the look and the simplicity of the idea—I rather enjoy watching [the FOX Sports ads] for all those reasons," says Smith.
While the afternoons spent watching his mother tag dead bodies may have contributed to Smith’s darker sensibilities, a different childhood influence rears its head in BMW Mini Cooper’s "Clown." The spot opens with a driver picking up a clown on the side of a mountain road. As they ride along, the clown runs through his bag of circus tricks and the driver begins to regret ever taking him on. The driver accelerates, weaving rapidly along the narrow, curving road, going faster and faster until the terrified clown begs to be let off. The tagline: "The Mini Cooper S—it’s small, but it’s no clown car."
The ad was shot in the style of an old silent movie, a genre Smith claims is an early influence for him. "I was sort of weaned on silent movies," he says. "I think in the end it was the right point of view for that spot—rough jump-cut sort of stuff, which is definitely silent movie. It allowed for all the gags that might not have made it in if we had shot it regularly."
One thing that definitely didn’t make it into the spot, however, was a nearly catastrophic sequence wherein, according to Smith, "we almost launched a car over the side of a cliff. We wrecked it, and it spun out and hit a guardrail," he recalls. "If it weren’t for the guardrail, the car would have flown over the side of a fairly sizeable cliff."
Near misses aside, the end product, like much of Smith’s work, is hard to fault. As Rupert Samuel—co-director of broadcast production at CP+B who produced the Mini Cooper ad—puts it, "Baker’s vision for the spot was right on. Whenever I get boards in, they end up on his desk."
With this sort of demand for his talent, it’s not a surprise that Smith had the confidence to venture out on his own. After starting his directing career with now defunct Harmony Pictures as part of a directing trio called Bliss—which included Scott Bibo, now with Alta Vista Films, Hollywood, and Charles Wittenmeier, of Form, Los Angeles—Smith moved to Tate & Partners, Santa Monica, in 1992. A decade later, he and his longtime producer Bonnie Goldfarb decided to start their own production company, forming Harvest in March ’01. The decision was, as Smith describes it, "the best thing I think I ever did in my life."
"It’s just nice to walk in and know what you’re working for," he says. "It’s your place, and how it’s run is under your control. Also, you can choose to work as much or as little as you want."
At press time, Smith was working on ads for Polaroid and Coors, and it seems that he will be working plenty. "I’m very happy with where I am now," he says. "I think it’s a really interesting time to be in the advertising world. There are so many opportunities for directors. I’m enjoying the fruits of fourteen years of very hard work."
