Those music video-style commercials for Fruit of the Loom never get old. Dallas-based The Richards Group, which has had Fruit of the Loom as a client for a decade, began producing the music video parodies featuring the Fruit Guys five years ago, kicking off the successful campaign with the country song “You Can’t Overlove Your Underwear.”
“This time around it felt right to do a big rock anthem for the modern man,” The Richards Group creative director/copywriter Ron Henderson said of the latest music video parody in the campaign–a :60 titled “Comfortably” and directed by Klaus Obermeyer of Aero Film, Santa Monica, Calif.
The process began with Henderson penning the song’s lyrics, which aim to “let all men know that whoever they are and whatever they wear, Fruit of the Loom has everything they need. It’s a message of comfort and hope in a time when people so desperately need it,” Henderson said. “Powerful, huh?”
“Are you boxers, are you briefs?” the song begins, ultimately promising, “I won’t leave you bare in your search for underwear.”
Regular Fruit of the Loom collaborators Roger and Scott Wojahn of Wojahn Bros Music, Santa Monica, set the lyrics to music. “Think about Chris Daughtry or David Cook or Nickelback, any of those rock bands that do big, emotional ballads you hear on the radio,” said Roger Wojahn who shares composer credit on “Comfortably” with his brother Scott. “It’s one big gooey mess, and that’s what we were going for.”
That “gooey mess” earned the number five slot in this quarter’s SHOOT Top Ten Tracks Chart. (See the full Chart rundown in this issue’s Music & Sound section.)
Top 40 session
Obermeyer, who has worked with The Richards Group on spots for Dodge Ram, Home Depot and Bridgestone but never Fruit of the Loom until “Comfortably,” sat in on the recording session for the ditty. “They actually produced the song like you would a top 40 hit,” the director said. “They got the best, most brilliant musicians, and the song was sticking in my head long before we shot the film, which was a really good sign.”
With the song as inspiration, Obermeyer worked with Henderson and The Richards Group creative director/art director Dennis Walker to create a loose storyboard that depicted a man who’s on a fateful quest to find the right underwear.
As we see in the commercial this quest takes the hunky young dude (played by Brandon Quinn) from the desert to the top of an oceanside cliff. Wherever he goes, there is a seemingly never ending assortment of Fruit of the Loom underwear hanging from what has got to easily be the world’s longest clothesline.
“We were laboring over how to best integrate the product, and the guys [Henderson and Walker] came up with this idea of a Christo landscape late in the game,” Obermeyer shared. “I thought it was great because it was both artistic and functional.”
To his credit, Obermeyer came up with the idea of weaving a secondary story throughout the music video involving an elusive woman (Rachelle Wood). “Klaus reminded us we couldn’t do a rock video without a pretty woman,” Henderson said, likening the character to an “underwear angel.”
Then there are, of course, the Fruit of the Loom Guys–that’s Apple (Rad Daily), Purple Grape (Wayne Wilderson), Green Grape (Richard Horvitz) and Leaf (Gene Steichen)–who are seen belting out–well, lip synching–“Comfortably.”
Piano man
Obermeyer and DP Bill Ahrens shot “Comfortably” on location throughout California, traveling from Dumont Dunes to Chimney Ranch Rock in San Luis Obispo to Montana De Oro State Park in Los Osos. It was one thing transporting the cast and crew to all of these locations, however it was quite another to transport the piano that is featured in the video–it had to be airlifted and lowered into each setting.
“We had so much fun playing it in between scenes, ” Obermeyer said, noting that he loved the antique piano–bought sight unseen from a seller in San Francisco–so much that he kept it after the shoot.
While portions of the music video were shot Steadicam and handheld, there are numerous aerial shots in the music video, lending it an epic feel. Obermeyer captured the aerial shots using what he calls the Klaus-cam–a camera attached to the underbelly of a helicopter.
Once the shoot wrapped, Henderson and Walker worked with editor Jack Waldrip of Dallas’ charlieuniformtango to cut “Comfortably.” “To be honest, it came together really quickly,” Henderson said, adding, “The more challenging part was adding the extra clothesline and billowing underwear that wasn’t captured in-camera in post.”
Obermeyer was not part of the edit, but he loved the final product, which he described as a music video “in the style of the old Creed videos when they had big budgets and were taking themselves pretty seriously.”
“The Fruit Guys would like to think they’re originals,” Henderson added. “But if you had to lump the video into a genre, it would probably live in the post-grunge/adult alternative world where everything’s a bit too serious and sung through the teeth.”
“Comfortably” is currently playing in movie theaters and on television, and the music video can also be seen at FruitGuys.com. MP3 songs can also be downloaded at that site, and the song is even getting radio play, according to Henderson.
