John O’Hagan is speaking to SHOOT via cell phone from a Taco Bell parking lot in Waveland, Mississippi, a town left in ruins in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. After seeing the devastation on television, O’Hagan was moved to collect donations from friends, load them into a cargo van and make the drive from New York City to Mississippi, arriving in Waveland about a week after Hurricane Katrina hit the area. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” says O’Hagan. “There are parts of the town where there is nothing but splintered wood where there were houses.”
O’Hagan, who has been spending most days helping to prepare meals for anywhere from 150 to 200 people, isn’t in the habit of responding to natural disasters. It’s just that this one hit him particularly hard. “People really need help down here–just sitting watching it on TV was frustrating,” he relates, “and I was lucky to be in a position where I actually had some time off, so I just decided why not?”
At the time we spoke, he was planning to stay a couple more weeks. “Then RSA’s probably going to want me to get back to work,” laughs O’Hagan. The director signed with bicoastal RSA USA earlier this year after a six-year run with bicoastal/international Hungry Man, and has since completed a number of spots under the RSA USA banner for clients including Kellogg’s, Staples, the NFL on FOX, and Milwaukee’s Best Light.
“Dog,” one of the spots he shot for Milwaukee’s Best Light agency Mother, New York, was chosen as a SHOOT Top Spot of the Week. Like all of the spots in the campaign, “Dog” finds an average guy crushed by a giant beer can for unmanly behavior–in this particular instance it was making a big fuss over a cute little dog. (Other spots in the package include “Check In,” “Insect,” “Match” and “Pizza.”) For FOX Sports, O’Hagan directed a trio of ads–“Colt,” “Globe of Death” and “Taking Care of Business”–which feature the FOX NFL team performing heroics beyond their coverage of the Sunday games. “Colt” features the foursome helping a horse deliver a colt, while “Taking Care of Business” features the guys saving a kid’s birthday party from a crocodile.
Feature Bound?
Like the work that O’Hagan did at Hungry Man, his latest fare out of RSA USA shows a knack for visual humor. So why did O’Hagan decide to depart Hungry Man for his new production home? O’Hagan’s decision was fueled in large part by his desire to make movies. That’s what he had long imagined he would be doing, and that was the path he was carving for himself while studying film at New York University. In addition to working for director Spike Lee on Crooklyn and spot and music video projects while a student, O’Hagan directed a documentary on the residents of Levittown, New York, called Wonderland, which screened at the Sundance Film Festival.
But a chance meeting with director Bryan Buckley not long after graduation caused this aspiring moviemaker to change gears. Buckley was then in the process of co-founding Hungry Man. “We got along, and he asked if I’d want to try doing a commercial,” O’Hagan shares. “I tried one, and I kept doing them.”
While at Hungry Man, O’Hagan compiled a reel of spots for clients ranging from Toyota to Timberland, Dial-A-Mattress to Dentyne. Among his standout spots are Range Roger’s “Hitchhikers” out of Young & Rubicam, Irvine, Calif. The commercial centers on two hitchhikers–they are college kids who eschew monetary success–one of them plans to major in ceramics and make pottery for a living. But when they are picked up by a couple in a Range Rover and get a taste of the luxury the vehicle affords, these kids suddenly start thinking about more lucrative careers.
Toyota’s “King of Trucks,” out of Saatchi & Saatchi LA, Torrance, Calif., recreates televised coverage of a monster truck rally. Suddenly, a Toyota Tacoma enters the scene. Clearly, the clueless driver took a wrong turn. The truck will surely be crushed by one of the monster trucks, right? Nope. The monster truck slams into the side of the indestructible Tacoma and flips over as the crowd cheers for the underdog.
If there was one job that put O’Hagan on the map, it was the Electronic Data System’s (EDS) “Cat Herders” spot out of Fallon, Minneapolis. The spot, which premiered during the Super Bowl in 2000 and went on to be seen internationally, introduced viewers to cowboys who herded not cattle but cats. The spot was undoubtedly funny in its absurdity, but it also demonstrated O’Hagan’s ability to create more cinematic fare: Interspersed throughout the spot are sweeping scenes of the cowboys herding thousands of cats across rugged plains.
One day, O’Hagan hopes to make an epic film. “My favorite kinds of films are epics, but it’s a hard leap to go from a thirty-second spot to someone wanting to fund your epic,” he says with a laugh.
In the meantime, O’Hagan hopes to direct some longer-form branded entertainment projects. “It’s a chance to actually expand and not be standing there with a stopwatch timing how long it takes someone to sigh or say a line,” he reasons. “I’m really looking forward to doing some work that goes beyond the thirty- or sixty-second spot.”
That said, O’Hagan notes that he enjoys–and has learned a great deal from–directing commercials. When it comes to choosing spots to direct, “I like to keep the work varied and maybe even a little unpredictable,” he says. “I think sometimes sales people are surprised by the things I’ll go after because I want to try to do different things. I try to keep learning basically.”
For the moment, though, O’Hagan’s mind isn’t on spotmaking. Sitting in a parking lot surrounded by National Guard troops and relief supplies, he wants to keep helping the residents of Waveland in whatever way he can. Seeing the devastation all around him while speaking with a reporter about his directing career certainly puts things in perspective. “Sometimes you find yourself taking things like work a little too seriously,” O’Hagan muses. “This is a reality check.”
