Swedish-born director Fredrik Bond, who’s repped by bicoastal/international Morton Jankel Zander (MJZ), has accumulated numerous awards throughout the course of his successful career, including honors from the Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP), Pencils from The One Show, Lions at the Cannes International Advertising Festival, and Clio Awards. And, his efforts on a Miller Lite campaign for Young & Rubicam, Chicago, led to an Emmy nomination.
The campaign’s inaugural spot, titled "Dominoes," was one of six spots nominated for this year’s primetime Emmy Award for best commercial. "It’s great," enthuses Bond. "I’m just surprised, thrilled and honored by the nomination."
"Dominoes" features people mimicking the dotted blocks. It begins with a close-up on a guy who falls domino-style into the person in front of him. This sets off a chain reaction that moves through streets, an office, an elevator, a grocery store, an alley, a train station and finally a bar. At the bar, a man is just about to topple onto a hipster twenty-something who is drinking a Miller Lite, but the beer drinker moves aside just in time. He flashes a bemused grin, looks at the fallen guy and then returns to his Miller Lite as a voiceover notes: "At Miller, we brew great beer for people who want to make their own choice." The announcement is followed by the Miller logo and text that reads, "Good call." In the end, viewers are left with the idea that when it comes to selecting a beer, it’s better to rely on their own instincts rather than blindly choosing a brew based upon what others claim to like. (The Emmy went to Citibank’s "Outfit," out of Fallon, Minneapolis, and directed by Kevin Thomas of Thomas Thomas, London.)
According to Bond, the four-day shoot in Toronto was lots of fun, but did present at least one challenge: flinching. "Getting the guys to fall without appearing to flinch was quite difficult," he remembers. "It was actually kind of funny. The actors found it very hard to just totally let go and fall down the way we needed them to. We solved that by hiring stunt people, who were willing to just let themselves go completely and naturally. There’s no trace of flinching in the final product, and I owe that to the great stunt guys we used."
Aside from that little hurdle, Bond says the shoot went "incredibly smoothly," which he credits to an extremely collaborative process. "It was enjoyable, from start to finish," he says. "The agency delivered a great script and was open to talking about many different ways of accomplishing it. I love that kind of process, where you just break everything down and then build it up again to see what, after all is said and done, of the original idea still stands up."
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Bond enjoys looking at multiple interpretations before deciding on a course of action. "All my best work has been the result of tossing things back and forth, taking bits of this and bits of that," he explains. "Ultimately, the best decisions come out of that process, and those are the types of work situations that I search for." That search has taken Bond around the world. Born in Sweden, Bond attended and graduated from New York University’s film school, and returned to his homeland to embark on a career as a still photographer, and then as an editor.
"There were a few years when I was fed-up with the editing process and knew that I really wanted to direct," shares Bond. "It was frustrating, but once I got my first chance to direct, I was totally bitten by the bug."
In the late ’90s, Bond put all his energy into becoming a full-time director and even opened his own production company—Bond. "I wanted to close it as soon as I opened it," he laughs. "I kept it running for less than a year. It just called for me to expend so much energy running the company that it left me with little time for real creativity to be a director."
The company did, however, provide Bond with a key stepping-stone in his directorial trajectory—a ’97 spec film titled Bananen. "I produced and directed Bananen through my company, and when it started to get noticed, that’s when things started to kick in for me as a director," he says. Soon, Bond was helming projects around the globe, including shoots in Italy, Germany, London and the U.S. "It seemed like everyone but the Swedes wanted to hire me," he humorously recalls.
He later found work closer to home at Mod Films, Stockholm, which was followed by a successful stint at the now defunct London shop Harry Nash. Ultimately, he sought a "more solid base in America," which brought him to MJZ in August ’02. "MJZ supports me both here and abroad, and that’s been amazing," says Bond, who currently divides his time between Stockholm, London, New York and Los Angeles. "I go wherever the work takes me, and the fact that I love to travel makes that very easy," he remarks.
Bond admits to having a weakness for relatable spots that offer "a combination of human emotion and empathic comedy." This should come as no surprise to viewers who have caught some of his more popular commercials—including Hewlett-Packard’s "Il Postino" and "Digital Crime Fighting" out of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco; Volkswagen’s "Demon Baby (Lupo)" for BMP DDB, London; and Monster.com’s "Golf" and "Growl" out of Saatchi & Saatchi, London.
"I really enjoy finding the comedy in a real way," he relates. "I don’t like broad comedy—for me, it is more powerful when you laugh because you recognize an emotion. Casting is a huge part of that, and I think that’s where my forte lies: in finding the right person to convey whatever emotion is called for in a particular story. … There are just so many aspects to creating good spots, and since I’m not someone who just wants to work back to back to back on projects, I’d rather take time between vehicles to really look for the ones that I’ll be happy having on my reel for a long time to come."Z
