Sometimes it seems that director Rupert Sanders of Omaha Pictures, Santa Monica, likes to do things the hard way. His reel contains a number of spots with striking visuals that have all the earmarks of heavy visual effects work.
For instance, in Guinness’ "Lava," done a couple of years ago with his London roost Outsider for AMV BBDO, London, an erupting volcano ravages a small town and its local pub.
Last year’s "The Great Return" for Nike and Wieden+Kennedy (W+K), Portland, Ore., follows a kid with a football dodging tackles and running through an urban landscape, as the camera seems to revolve around him in the style of a video game.
Hewlett-Packard’s "Restore," out of Goodby, Silverstein and Partners (GS&P), San Francisco, illustrates how the computer company’s digital imaging technology helps London’s National Gallery save priceless works of art. The ad is set in the 17th century and features a young boy heading to the performance depicted in the classic painting "The Concert," by Dutch artist Hendrick ter Brugghen, which was painted circa 1626.
And more recently, "Thirsty," part of the California Milk Processor Board’s long-running "Got Milk?" campaign out of GS&P, features a woman whose bones are crying out for milk—so much so that her skeleton removes itself from her body, walks to the refrigerator, grabs a carton of milk and drinks it up. (He also directed Saturn’s "Pac Man" for the agency.)
Those and other spots in Sanders’ oeuvre scream out CGI, but Sanders wanted to do them all in camera—which wasn’t easy. Sanders considers "Lava" to be his greatest accomplishment. Tons of slag from a coal mine was brought in, and lava was simulated by a fluorescent fire gel. "It was kind of a thin script that needed a lot of storytelling," he recalls, "and it was a nightmare to film. We were out in Poland and it was a nine-day shoot. I’ve only quite recently been able to look at it because it was quite depressing, the whole thing, but that’s filmmaking—it’s hell."
While Sanders might have had an easier time with some of his work if he utilized full CG, he simply finds it difficult and unsatisfying to work in that type of environment. "I just feel it’s very hard to react to things you can’t see," he explains. "I think you lose so much of the control, unless you’re a Flame artist. You’re handing it over to someone else. I think editing and cinematography are two arts that are way more powerful than just doing everything later in CGI."
For "The Great Return," Sanders and the spot’s editor, Neil Smith of the Santa Monica office of The Whitehouse (the edit shop also has offices in London, New York and Chicago), came up with what they believe was a new technique. The job had already been awarded when they realized that it needed something to take it out of the ordinary. "I really wanted to make it like a computer game," Sanders says. "I love the way the camera seems to move around the players in the game. I was trying to imagine if a camera was strapped to someone’s back on a cable, and as he moved, it kind of spun out around and above him."
Smith and Sanders started with a few video cameras on a rig partially surrounding the ball carrier, and did some tests. "Neil and I found it actually worked," Sanders says. "Then we doubled and tripled the number of cameras. I think we had fifty cameras altogether. It was very low tech. It was on a kind of golf trolley, everything was gaffer-taped together."
For "Thirsty," Sanders created an actual skeleton. "We were advised to do every shot CGI, but we decided early on we’d do everything in camera," he notes. "Even the skeleton drinking the milk was done live. We felt that if you see a CGI skeleton, it’s just a CGI skeleton. You go, ‘Oh, good skeleton, but it’s CGI.’ With a real skeleton, you’re filming through its ribs as the refrigerator door opens and seeing it laugh and how it waddles—it becomes a lot more human. We had a model made by Mastersfx [Arleta, Calif.], and we had three puppeteers."
Some CG work was added later, Sanders reports, but not to the main elements of the spot. "The people who graded our work were very amazed about how everything was shot in camera," he says. "It’s got its integrity, and it’s exposed. It’s a print rather than ‘fix it in post.’ [DP] Jess Hall is a real genius when it comes to cinematography. We have worked really closely together since seven or eight years ago."
Currently, Sanders is completing an Infiniti campaignout of TBWA/ Chiat/Day, Los Angeles, and adidas out of the San Francisco office of TBWA/Chiat/Day. While he promises that the ads will break new ground, he wasn’t at liberty to discuss the concepts, revealing only that the Infiniti spot, which will air first in Japan, is "very experimental." "We really like to confuse ourselves and push the boundaries," Sanders relates. "Similar with adidas, [the Infiniti campaign is] a huge thing with a lot of confusing elements. But that’s where it’s enjoyable."
Quality assurance
Sanders mixes a high level of energy and passion in his jobs with a somewhat detached and laid back approach to his career. A London native, he graduated from the city’s St. Martin’s College in ’94 with a degree in graphic design, but he put emphasis on the communication of ideas rather than design. "I wasn’t really thinking about a career at all, to be honest," he shares. "I have never thought about a career. I just enjoy doing what I’m doing."
Bumming around the United States with friends, he managed to snag a low level job with director Tony Kaye, who is now with bicoastal Supply & Demand. "When I first walked onto a set, I saw Tony up in a helicopter and below him was a MiG jet and below that was a Formula One racing car," says Sanders. "It was a huge TAG Heuer shoot. I walked into that and I thought, ‘God, this is what I want to do.’ Hanging out with Tony, he saw that I had a visual understanding of stuff and said, ‘You should go and direct.’ "
Spending his own money on a spec spot for the Sony Walkman, Sanders later sold the ad, titled "Don’t Just Walk, Man," to Sony’s U.K. agency BMP and used it to land a helming job with now defunct Tony Kaye Films, where he directed from ’98 until shortly before Kaye dissolved the company in ’01. Sanders then signed with Outsider, which later hooked up with Omaha.
Earlier this year, Sanders moved from London to Los Angeles, but not to pursue more commercialwork here. "I don’t like to work too much," he says. "I like to do a few good jobs, probably about six a year. I like to put all my attention into what I’m doing at that moment, to see a project through the editing and postproduction stage. I think as long as you have the first cut, at least you can put your version of the puzzle together."
The move to Los Angeles was more related to an independent feature he plans to make next year, D-Minus, set in California’s San Fernando Valley in the ’80s. "It’s very character-based, sort of darkly comedic," Sanders says. "It’s very down to earth, very dramatic and small scale, just relying on cinematography, editing and acting. The script was written by my brother-in-law, Milo Ross, who grew up in L.A."
Sanders sees features as a natural progression for him, but he intends to direct commercials for as long as they are a challenge. "It’s a great medium in which to try things," he remarks. "And probably more people will see a commercial for adidas than D-Minus."Z
