It’s the lunch rush, and an efficient eatery–think New York deli-style with everything from turkey sandwiches to sushi–is serving a stream of hungry patrons like clockwork.
As the classic theme “Powerhouse” plays, spatula-wielding cooks gracefully flip food off the grill and send it soaring over their heads onto plates, members of the sandwich crew toss cheese on top of sandwiches like they’re dealing cards in Vegas and the smoothie man slides his concoctions down the counter at breakneck speed, creating a colorful parade.
This is the energetic scene set in the :60 “Lunch,” a new Visa Check Card spot created byTBWAChiatDay, Los Angeles, and directed by Kinka Usher of House of Usher Films, Santa Monica.
One by one, carrying trays loaded with food, customers buzz right through the checkout with a swipe of their Visa Check Cards. But then a man dares to use cash to pay for his food, and the well-oiled machine grinds to a halt, the line buckling behind him. The pace picks up once the guy finishes his transaction, the people behind him breezing through with their Visa Check Cards.
“Lunch” aims to depict “how smoothly life flows with the Visa Check Card,” according to TBWAChiatDay associate creative director Chuck Monn, who noted, “We wanted to make a real statement for the brand.”
Added agency creative director Doug James, “This is the first spot in a new direction that we’re taking where all of the work is dramatizing the life you can have with [Visa Check Card] in a really hyperbolic way.”
Usher appreciated the big, straightforward message in “Lunch.” “I think a lot of times ads are very complicated, but I thought this was very pure and really, in a very visual way, translated the benefit of using this card,” Usher said, noting, “A five-year-old could watch this commercial and get it as well as an 80-year-old.”
Propelling the action is the “Powerhouse” track. Composed by Raymond Scott, the bouncy theme has been used in more than three-dozen cartoons, ranging from Porky Pig to The Simpsons, according to Wikipedia. Jimmy Haun and Nate Morgan of Elias Arts, Los Angeles, arranged the version for this spot.
Both Monn and James found themselves instinctively humming the tune when they read the “Lunch” script submitted by copywriter Steve Zumwinkel and art director Tom Gibson. After asking Usher for his opinion and finding that he agreed the track would drive the action, the agency decided to go with it.
Setting the stage Armed with an amazing tune, Usher and DP Stefan Czapsky shot “Lunch” on a stage at Hollywood Center Studios in Los Angeles. Locations had been scouted, but Usher soon realized the spot had to be shot on a stage, in part, to accommodate the grand overhead shots.
David Beeler was cast in the role of the unaware man who still pays with cash. Many of the extras were dancers or actors with dance training. “The way I approached this was much more like a stage play or musical,” Usher explained, noting that on point choreography was key. He actually spent a full day before the spot was shot rehearsing with his talent.
“[The rehearsal] was incredibly helpful because, as you can imagine, those overhead shots where everybody is moving in sync and everything is twisting and turning and weaving and ducking really took a long time to work out,” Monn shared.
Food for thought Mandy Sorenson and Robert Sethi of Brickyard VFX, Santa Monica, were on-hand as visual effects shoot supervisors. Brickyard VFX handled the effects portion of the job, which involved, among other things, creating CG food and inserting it into various shots. “Our goal was to keep the effects as playful and smooth and real as possible,” said Sethi, who also served as co-lead 3D artist, while Sorenson was lead 2D artist.
One of the big challenges was tracking the camera moves and match moving the hands of the actors. “That was stuff we really paid attention to. We had to make sure we had enough tracking points,” Sethi explained. “While the crew was filming the scene where they’re throwing the cheese and making the sandwiches, for example, we set up an observation camera so we could see the actors’ hands more clearly and from a different angle. That helped us get a better sense of depth.”
As for creating the CG food, he said, “The agency wanted the food to be colorful. The hard part was trying to put in as much color as possible without making the food pop too much. We didn’t want it to look fake.”
Tom Muldoon of Nomad Editing Company, Santa Monica, cut “Lunch” into :30 and :60 versions. Speaking of the :60 spot being highlighted here, Usher said, “He [Muldoon] created a beautiful spot, and he’s the one that really deserves a lot of credit here, moreso than me, because this is very much an editor’s commercial. I brought the film to him that he needed, but he really brought the timing to the cut.”
