A :30 for Orkin titled “Pizza Delivery” presents an original, imaginative depiction of how determined pests like roaches are to invade our homes. Created by The Richards Group, Dallas, and directed by Zach Math of Bob Industries, Santa Monica, the humorous spot has a talking, human-sized roach trying to pass himself off as a pizza deliveryman in order to gain access to a woman’s home. When the woman, who knows something is up, says she didn’t order any pizza, the roach pushes, asking if he can bring the pizza inside.
Luckily for her, an Orkin pest control expert pulls up to her house just in time to save the day. Undeterred, the roach drives by in his beat-up car later to case the joint, but the Orkin man is still on duty, protecting the home. A voiceover intones, “Bugs want in, but Orkin keeps them out. Orkin, keeping pests in their place.”
In creating “Pizza Delivery,” “We wanted to give the bugs a little credit. They are clever, and they always seem to find a way into your house,” remarked The Richards Group creative director/copywriter David Morring.
“So often, you see scare tactics being employed in these kinds of ads,” The Richards Group art director Peter Everitt added, “and we wanted to take that and twist it and dramatize the point in a different way, keeping it lighthearted but raising the issue of our fear of these intruders.”
Math was brought in early on in the creative process, three months before he had to shoot the two-spot campaign, which also includes a :30 called “Broken Down.” “They brought me in during the conception, the realization of the idea, so I came on as a third set of eyes if you will, which was really cool,” Math said. “It was more like the British process where [an agency] brings a director in, and you’re really more part of a team as opposed to a hired gun who comes in and shoots stuff.”
Math dove into the process, even taking the time to write a bio for the roach. In case you’re wondering, Math imagined the pest as a nefarious character that won the car we see him driving in a card game.
As for the physical creation of the roach, Everitt said that various approaches–including a CG roach and the old-fashioned actor in a bug costume tactic–were considered. But a CG bug was ruled out because it might look fake and wouldn’t give the actors something real to respond to, and a guy in a costume was nixed because it would immediately take the comedy to a more slapstick place, and that’s not where the agency wanted the spot to go tonally, according to Everitt.
Ultimately, Stan Winston Studio of Van Nuys, Calif., was brought in to create a roach puppet for “Pizza Delivery” (as well as a termite puppet for the campaign’s other spot). “We wanted the characters to be as real as possible, but we gave creative license to give them more human-like qualities–to let the bugs stand upright and their mouths move more expressively,” Everitt explained. “But they’re true to the insect anatomies, with changes to help the performances be more expressive and humanlike.”
Fear of height One of Math’s biggest concerns was the height of the bugs. If, for instance, the roach was towering over the woman at the door, he would have been too menacing, and it would have been hard to believe she wouldn’t have just slammed the door in his face, Math maintained. So, in the end, the roach stood a less menacing–yet still freaky–5’7″ or 5’8″, the director estimated.
With a cast of realistic-looking bug puppets and humans ready to go, Math and DP Patrick McGowan shot the spots on location in Pasadena.
Math revealed that the scene in No Country for Old Men between Javier Bardem’s creepy character and the gas station clerk inspired how the scene between the roach and the woman at the door was played out in “Pizza Delivery.” “I loved the awkward tension that played on a tonal level [in that scene from No Country for Old Men],” Math said. “But, ultimately, it was extremely funny, and I hadn’t seen that kind of humor before, bred out of this subversive tension that’s dark and odd but absolutely hilarious.”
The director even instructed Jerry Buteyn, the actor who voiced the roach in the final version of the spot, to mimic Bardem’s tone from the film.
Quiet time Subtle, quiet performances were key to making “Pizza Delivery” and “Broken Down” work, Everitt noted. “Zach was able to extract real, subtle, small performances from people, and that was crucial to the comedy. It could have easily gone the other way, with more slapstick-style comedy.”
Matthew Wood of The Whitehouse cut “Pizza Delivery,” with Math contributing to a first cut.
Elsewhere, VFX director Mandy Sorenson and the team at Brickyard VFX in Santa Monica, performed rig removal and tweaked the roach puppet to make it seem more alive.
Might we see the roach–and the alluded to termite–in additional spots? The concept seems like it has legs. For his part, Math can picture the roach applying for a job in a restaurant.
“We hope so,” Morring said. “We have other scripts that are ready to go, and as far as I know from the client side, there are some expectations to do more.”
