A fresh perspective on politics and The Line of Scrimmage
By Robert Goldrich
An accomplished veteran director, Dan Levinson grew up in the commercialmaking business, yet this year he’s breaking new ground that one might more naturally associate with a young turk helmer. Via the company he founded, bicoastal/international Moxie Pictures, Levinson has injected new life into political advertising, a prime example being his Sopranos finale episode spoof for presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, which attained major web hit status. Furthermore Levinson has showcased new content chops on another front, with The Line of Scrimmage, a 16-part mini-series–now in its second season–for Toyota and Saatchi & Saatchi LA that is airing during halftime of NBC’s Sunday Night Football telecasts.
First in the political arena, the Sopranos takeoff for the Clinton campaign was a YouTube phenomenon, generating assorted hits and getting varied pundits talking about Hillary Clinton in a positive light.
Though the project came out of the Clinton media team, it tapped into the prime movers behind New York-based ad firm a-political–Levinson and former BBDO vice chairman/creative maven Jimmy Siegel.
Siegel wrote The Sopranos piece and Levinson directed it. The video opens with Hillary Clinton entering the Mount Kisco diner in Westchester, N.Y. She sits down at a window booth. Second later she is joined by her husband, who is casually dressed and bemoans the fact that she’s ordered an appetizer of raw carrots instead of onion rings. She explains, “I’m looking out for you.”
Hillary peruses the table’s jukebox selections, which includes the songs voted on by her supporters to be her campaign theme. (The eventual winner being Celine Dion’s “You and I.”) Then the slice of life takes on a surreal Sopranos tone–Chelsea Clinton parallel parking outside, Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” playing in the background, and Vincent Curatola, who played John “Johnny Sack” Sacramoni on The Sopranos, getting up from his diner counter seat and walking by the Clinton’s booth, casting a stare towards Hillary and Bill that elicits puzzled facial expressions from them both.
The fun, light-hearted yet topical piece–which premiered about a week after The Sopranos finale–helped to cast Hillary Clinton in a more humorous light. The video also reportedly propelled her from fourth among the candidates in web traffic to flat-out first.
The idea to do the spoof came on a Friday and was shot two days later, not too tall an order for experienced commercialmakers like Levinson and Siegel. “It’s personally gratifying anytime you can create work that has a bigger goal–to raise awareness of a worthy cause, to do good by electing a candidate or possibly helping to elect the president,” relates Levinson. “But with so much political advertising in the marketplace, you have to stand out.”
And standing out, he notes, entails creating quality fare that is the antithesis of the quick, dirty, often mudslinging executions so closely associated with the political ad genre over the years.
Indeed a-political, which entails a partnership between Siegel and Moxie, has sought and reached a higher plane, perhaps best reflected in the fact that the work is good enough to appear on a directorial reel, another example being a spot which helped first-term congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand get elected in upstate New York. The spot cast actor David Strathairn who reprised his role as Edward R. Murrow in Good Night and Good Luck. In the ad, the Murrow character takes Gillibrand’s Republic opponent John Sweeney to task for smear tactics reminiscent of McCarthyism. Coverage of the commercial–for a local election–appeared in major newspapers all over the country, was picked up by the AP newswire, and helped increase Gillibrand’s fundraising on a national level. “Every candidate is a brand and we’re about building brand,” observes Levinson.
Meanwhile for The Line of Scrimmage, Levinson is trekking across the country profiling high school football in eight cities, with two :45s for each city–one covering a team and/or game, the other the local community and its football spirit. The spots feel home made, thus carrying an intentionally lo-fi, unpretentious look. Beyond the broadcast spots airing on NBC, Levinson is turning out a significant amount of other varied content for The Line of Scrimmage website.
“It’s about the best that America has to offer, whether it’s a town in Ohio, Montana or Texarkana. We capture kids dedicated to football, hard work and positive values and it’s just shaping up as a great experience for me personally and professionally. Overall it’s a great branding association for Toyota with football and with what makes the game great.”
With all the new entrees on Levinson’s directorial plate, there’s still room for some mainstream spotmaking, including such work for Nike as “Witness,” paying homage to the LeBron James phenomenon in Cleveland for Wieden+Kennedy (W+K), Portland, Ore., and “13 Wins,” which features the fun one-upmanship battle going on between golf star Tiger Woods and tennis champion Roger Federer. The latter spot has aired heavily in Japan, and was produced by Moxie for W+K, Tokyo and Portland.
“The mix of work has been incredible, working with Nike, the new content for Toyota and helping to redefine the political ad landscape,” relates Levinson. “All you can ask for is opportunity. I’m grateful for the new kinds of opportunities that have come my way–and that we’re pursuing for all the Moxie Pictures’ directors.”
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Review: Writer-Director Andrea Arnold’s “Bird”
"Is it too real for ya?" blares in the background of Andrea Arnold's latest film, "Bird," a 12-year-old Bailey (Nykiya Adams) rides with her shirtless, tattoo-covered dad, Bug (Barry Keoghan), on his electric scooter past scenes of poverty in working-class Kent.
The song's question — courtesy of the Irish post-punk band Fontains D.C. — is an acute one for "Bird." Arnold's films ( "American Honey," "Fish Tank") are rigorous in their gritty naturalism. Her fiction films — this is her first in eight years — tend toward bleak, hand-held verité in rough-and-tumble real-world locations. Her last film, "Cow," documented a mother cow separated from her calf on a dairy farm.
Arnold specializes in capturing souls, human and otherwise, in soulless environments. A dream of something more is tantalizing just out of reach. In "American Honey," peace comes to Star (Sasha Lane) only when she submerges underwater.
In "Bird," though, this sense of otherworldly possibility is made flesh, or at least feathery. After a confusing night, Bailey awakens in a field where she encounters a strange figure in a skirt ( Franz Rogowski ) who arrives, like Mary Poppins, with a gust a wind. His name, he says, is Bird. He has a soft sweetness that doesn't otherwise exist in Bailey's hardscrabble and chaotic life.
She's skeptical of him at first, but he keeps lurking about, hovering gull-like on rooftops. He cranes his neck now and again like he's watching out for Bailey. And he does watch out for her, helping Bailey through a hard coming of age: the abusive boyfriend (James Nelson-Joyce) of her mother (Jasmine Jobson); her half brother (Jason Buda) slipping into vigilante violence; her father marrying a new girlfriend.
The introduction of surrealism has... Read More