We’ve seen dolls used in commercials before. But, uh, never like this. We’re talking about the wonderfully ridiculous new Virgin Mobile spot “Greatest Adult Music,” which finds dolls starring in a soft-core porn spoof. Created by Mother, New York, and directed by Peter Darley Miller of bicoastal/international @radical.media, “Greatest Adult Music” promotes Virgin Mobile’s introduction of free nights and weekends minutes to its pay-as-you-go plan customers. “That concept in this industry isn’t absolutely new–well, it’s new when it comes to pay-as-you-go plans–but, in general, it isn’t that new, so we wanted to create something extra and add some dimension [to the offer],” explained Mother partner/creative director Paul Malmstrom.
That something extra is Virgin Mobile’s Listen Line. Created by Mother, the Listen Line allows Virgin Mobile users to spend their free nights and weekends minutes listening to offbeat audio. Among the content offerings on Listen Line: language lessons, motivational gems and the greatest adult music, of course.
Hence the “Greatest Adult Music” commercial (one of a multi-spot campaign divided between @radical.media’s Miller, Dave Meyers and Andrew Zuckerman), which finds Nikki, an attractive blonde (who happens to be a doll), opening the door of her apartment to find Chad, the cable guy (another doll), standing there.
“Hi. I’m here to fix the cable,” Chad says, his voice deep and sexy.
Nikki invites him into her apartment, and they retire to the couch.
“My friend just came over to shower,” Nikki informs Chad.
Cut to a shot of a female friend of Nikki’s in the shower, then back to Nikki in time to see the strap of her dress fall off her shoulder.
Cue the music–a groovy porn-style track with a distinctly 1970s vibe.
Discarding his jacket, Chad advances toward Nikki, asking, “Where should I plug this in?”
One has to ask: What went through Miller’s mind when he read the script for “Greatest Adult Music?” “I was laughing,” Miller recounted. “It was very funny and very well done.”
Miller and DP Mott Hupfel shot “Greatest Adult Music,” as well as spots titled “Motivational Speaker” and “History By Dwayne,” over two days in–of all places–a New York City church. In fact, Nikki’s apartment is actually the office of a rector’s secretary’s office, Miller shared.
According to Mother creative Dylan Bernd, the office, which happened to have a bathroom with a shower, was re-fitted with wood paneling, a “pleather” couch and bad art to give it that “classic seventies/eighties cheesy porn look.”
The dolls featured in the spot were procured in Manhattan’s Chinatown. After rounding up about twenty of them, the Mother team brought the dolls back to the office for a casting session. “We had them take off their clothes and act out some scenes–nothing too sexual but more just sensual and tasteful. It was a good casting session,” Bernd shared, noting, “It got a little hot and heated. I actually had to leave the room.”
Bernd is joking, of course–at least we hope so.
NEW YORK DOLLS Chad, with his Boogie Nights look, is a hybrid of sorts, constructed from the pieces of other dolls, pointed out Miller. Chad didn’t originally have the sexy mustache he sports in the spot, by the way. That’s an idea Bernd came up with on location, according to Mother creative Susan Corbo, who recalled, “The art department just drew it on with a marker. We had no Chad backup, so if they had screwed up the mustache, we were done for. But, luckily, everything went okay.”
Once his talents were looking their hottest and ready to perform, Miller got to work, mixing stop-motion and live-action techniques. “When you see Chad and Nikki, they move in stop-motion, but the door [to Nikki’s apartment] moves in real time, and the shower scene with her friend is in real time,” Miller said, noting the combination of stop-motion and live-action gives the spot a unique twist in terms of look.
A low-tech production, Miller noted, “The whole idea was to go for the concept and make it as funny as possible and not worry about making it perfect.”
As you might imagine, making this spot was a lot of fun. “You have to understand that we were all laughing hysterically when we were taping Chad to the couch,” Miller said. (To achieve the effect of Chad “climbing” up onto the couch, Miller simply taped him in place, moving him up and onto the couch little by little.) “There was something to be said for the pure entertainment of making the whole thing.”
Editor Dick Gordon of Spot Welders, New York, cut “Greatest Adult Music.” Miller noted that Mother allowed him to work on a first cut with Gordon over the course of a weekend, “then they came in on Monday and kept going on it because I had to leave for another job.”
As for the music, credits initially provided by Mother list a music company called Monkeybacon, however, in talking with Malmstrom about the tune featured in the spot, the creative revealed that he was the composer. Miller, for one, was impressed with Malmstrom’s musical skills. “He would have had a life in the porno industry in the ’70s,” Miller mused.
Malmstrom’s willingness to pitch in and create the music for the spot was typical of the enthusiastic team approach Mother brought to the table, Miller praised. “The thing that was so fun about the whole job was that everybody who was involved brought something to the party,” the director said. “Everybody had something to contribute.”
