To commemorate its 50th anniversary, which comes upon us in December, SHOOT continues a special series of features in which noted industry executives and artists reflect on the changes they’ve seen over the decades, the essential dynamics that have endured, and their visions and aspirations for the future.
In this installment we add a pair of accomplished filmmakers to the mix: MJZ‘s Tom Kuntz, who earlier this year won the Directors Guild of America (DGA) Award as the best commercial director of 2009 (for Cadbury’s viral sensation “Eyebrows” out of Fallon, London; Skittles’ “Tailor” for TBWAChiatDay, N.Y.; and CareerBuilder.com’s “Tips,” a 2009 Super Bowl spot, as well as Old Spice’s “Scents For Gents,” both from Wieden+Kennedy, Portland, Ore.); and Lance Acord, a past nominee for the DGA Award, co-founder of Park Pictures, a noted spot director/DP, and a feature cinematographer whose credits include director Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are, Adaptation and Being John Malkovich as well as director Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette and Lost in Translation.
Tom Kuntz In several respects, the Tom Kuntz-directed, MJZ-produced Old Spice Body Wash spot “The Man Your Man Can Smell Like” for Wieden+Kennedy, Portland, Ore., eloquently reflects how the industry has evolved. The commercial has become part of mainstream pop culture and rebranded Old Spice with a cool, contemporary dynamic that is dramatically different from the traditional, somewhat stodgy Old Spice associated with previous generations. This clearly is no longer your grandfather’s Old Spice and for that matter the old P&G–and the change has seen the product enjoy breakthrough sales success in the consumer marketplace.
It’s also an ad that has enjoyed significant viewership both on television as well as online. Underscoring the spot’s entertainment value, it won this year’s primetime commercial Emmy Award. On the advertising industry awards circuit, “The Man Your Man Can Smell Like” also earned the Film Grand Prix at Cannes, and the best of show/single commercial honor at the AICP Show.
“Sometimes I hear people hailing the demise of advertising and traditional format commercials,” said Kuntz. “But for me, that’s missing the real point which is what keeps me moving–as long as you’re doing something interesting, it doesn’t matter what medium you’re working in. Being interesting, entertaining and of value is more important than ever in order to reach and connect with an audience. People have a lot more control over what they choose to watch and absorb. They can fast forward through commercials, call up what they want on the web. The pressure is on directors like myself and ad agencies to turn out work that earns its way into people’s lives.
“With Old Spice, we managed to do that. It’s an ad that people have been seeking out. It would be interesting to find out how many people saw it on TV or on YouTube or both. Clearly it was a spot that people forwarded to others. And Wieden has spun out the campaign and given it a much more multi-dimensional feeling, with Isaiah [actor/former pro football player Mustafa], for example, answering people’s questions and comments on YouTube.”
Mustafa also provided a touchpoint that doesn’t come easily to Kuntz. “Being so close to the work, I haven’t been that cognizant of how pop culture comes into play,” related the director. “But one indication came during the Emmy Awards ceremony. I saw that Isaiah was a celebrity. I found that amazing off of a commercial campaign. He hasn’t acted in anything else. Other actors recognized him, came up to him, talked to him. He was embraced by his peers as a celebrity. Isaiah is extremely talented and will go on to do more great things–but he already has celeb status. No one looked down on him for not being a film actor. That showed me that our commercial had gained acceptance as–and had become part of–mainstream culture.”
Meanwhile becoming part of the ad/entertainment culture are longer form opportunities beyond the broadcast :30, which elicits mixed feelings from Kuntz. “On one hand, having more time to communicate and entertain can be a wonderful opportunity for directors and creatives,” he said. “If it’s exciting and well written content, if it feels like entertainment and not an ad, there’s great value there.
“But sometimes I worry that clients, agencies and directors are being delusional if they think people are just going to automatically tune in. There’s relief in knowing that a commercial, good or bad, will be over in 30 seconds. It’s like hearing a joke. I’m happy to hear it, but I might not want to sit down and hear a 10-minute joke. Just because we have the Internet and are not confined to the 30-second format doesn’t mean we can be long-winded and someone on the other end will care.”
Kuntz additionally brings an agency creative perspective to the discussion, having made his first mark in the business as an art director, working at such shops as JWT New York, Kirshenbaum Bond+Partners, New York, and MTV’s on-air promotion department.
“I think things are more daunting than ever on the creative side, the bar is constantly being raised–and this was happening well before the advent of new media,” observed Kuntz. “Back in the 1950s when you made a TV commercial, you didn’t have to do much to make it neat-o. But when the novelty wore off, the pressure was on to do more as people over the years became more and more numb to advertising. The remote control gave TV audiences power, and now TiVo and the Internet have increased that power of choice. Creatives have to earn people’s attention, at times even sneaking messages past them so they don’t even readily know they’re being sold to. Messages have to entertain, inform, cause a spark just to attract meaningful viewership.”
As for opportunities for new directorial talent to get noticed, Kuntz sees a mixed bag. “I get the sense it’s quite hard to break in right now. It’s a saturated directors market with a lot of really talented people out there trying to get in but fewer jobs that are realistically available to up-and-coming talent. At the same time, there are things being made that are budget challenged, that a seasoned director might not do but a person starting out would jump on if given the chance.”
A major plus, continued Kuntz, is the web as a far reaching medium for exposure. “Ten years ago you had to shoot something and show it to somebody at a production house or ad agency–if they would even consent to see it in the first place. You had to go a linear way to get your work seen and appreciated. On the web, though it’s not easy, you can go from nobody to an ‘overnight sensation.’ Getting a great piece of work noticed online can translate into getting your foot in the door or even having a career.”
Lance Acord Offering a perspective that dates back about 15 years when he was transitioning from shooting music videos and commercials to directing spots, Lance Acord recalled his starting to settle into the director’s chair towards the end of the dot-com era.
“There was a lot of free associative thinking in terms of making dot-com ads,” he recollected. “It was more about coming up with an idea that would get attention rather than a message that would advance sales. Often you didn’t know exactly what was being sold, the need to get attention being timed to an IPO. In some ways, there was a lot of creative freedom but that all grounded to a halt when the dot-com bubble burst.”
Fast forward to today and that free wheeling creative mindset with little or no grounding in sales is a distant memory, with the state of the economy being a key catalyst for the dramatic about-face. “I see a lot of fear-based decision-making going on. In the past agencies had more of a final creative say but their relationships with clients have since changed. As a director, you still collaborate with an agency in creating the piece. But when it comes down to the edit, it seems that frequently the final decisions are being made by the clients themselves. Agencies aren’t willing to take the same creative stand they might have five years ago.”
This has translated into more creatively conservative work at times, observed Acord who noted that it also seems to take more time to arrive at the final script and message, which means less time between when the job is awarded and then shot. “There’s less time and less money, which I suppose stems from the economy.”
Still, though, Acord is an optimist by nature. Longer-form opportunities beyond the :30 format, the reach of the Internet all offer new possibilities for creatives and filmmakers. Furthermore, he sees promise in mainstream commercialmaking, which still requires actor performances, exhibiting humanity and/or comedy. Paradoxically these ads are sponsoring primetime network programming that often requires no actors or writers as the reality-based genre increases in its prominence. The outlets for programs containing production value, actor performance and storytelling are the HBOs, AMCs, the Showtimes while the traditional ad supported broadcast networks opt for a larger percentage of shows that are cheap to produce like reality TV.
“I’m finding that when flipping through the channels, the commercials are more interesting than the programming in terms of story and character,” said Acord who conjectured that is why he is hearing higher profile actors expressing increased interest in performing in spots and branded entertainment. Actors, he related, are noticing for instance that there are growing opportunities for original long-form content on the Internet.
Just as more name actors are seriously considering involvement in the ad sector, music bands and artists have already gravitated to this arena. “Now that selling CDs doesn’t exist all that much and touring is becoming a primary source of income for talented bands, music performers are exploring new opportunities for exposure such as licensing or creating music for commercials and [branded] content. The music industry has embraced commercials and TV as vehicles to get artists and their work out into the world. And this doesn’t diminish the public perception of a band’s credibility. It depends on what’s being sold to a degree but the stigma attached to being involved in advertising is no longer there. It’s much more accepted today.”
Acord remembered a Volkswagen job he shot quite some time ago for the directorial duo Dayton/Faris of Bob Industries as reflecting the early development of this music trend. Titled “Milky Way,” the spot was driven by a score consisting of music from the late Nick Drake’s “Pink Moon” album. The commercial fueled a resurgence of interest in Drake’s music.
A recent counterpart example, noted Acord, would be the French band Phoenix whose music has gained widespread exposure in a 2010 Cadillac campaign, spurring on a new, expanded following for the artists.
Acord co-founded Park Pictures in 1998 and the production house continues to enjoy a successful run, active in commercials and diversifying into other areas as evidenced by its short The New Tenants, directed by Joachim Back, which earlier this year won the Oscar for best live action short film. A darkly satirical, twisted mistaken identity caper, The New Tenants had a cast that included Vincent D’Onofrio, Jamie Harrold, Kevin Corrigan and David Rakoff. Among the film’s executive producers were Park Pictures’ partners, Acord and EP Jacqueline Kelman Bisbee.
Asked if a Park Pictures could be launched successfully today, Acord assessed, “The business model is still viable. We have maintained a close-knit roster of directors and kept the company small in comparison to many other houses. You call here and you know who you’re talking to–we have an executive producer on the East Coast and one on the West Coast. I think the bigger company models are more difficult to sustain in today’s climate–huge rosters, offices everywhere, six executive producers. By contrast, we have maintained a manageable size while selectively branching out into other forms of content. We’re also a company where directors have the freedom to go off and take on other projects. I’ve shot feature films and not done commercials for close to a year in some cases but the model is sustainable because we have other directors continuing to work in commercials. And they are able to bring a lot to commercials because they know that when the opportunity arises for them to take on other challenges, we encourage them to do so. These experiences energize them and add to what they can contribute when they return to commercials.”
As for changes impacting his role as a feature cinematographer, Acord cited digital filmmaking and the process of deciding on a shooting format.
“It used to be left to the director and cinematographer to decide how a movie would be shot,” related Acord. “Now sometimes these decisions are made before hand, which can be a deal breaker for some cinematographers. They don’t want to be told what format a movie will be shot on. They don’t feel comfortable being put in a role where they must deliver to the high creative standard they’re known for but in a format they didn’t make the decision to use.”
Click here to read Part I of this series. Hear from…
Lee Clow, chief creative officer/global director, Media Arts, TBWA Worldwide, and chairman, TBWA/Media Arts Lab
Bob Giraldi, award-winning director, Giraldi Media
Larry Bridges, director/editor & founder, Red Car
Robert Greenberg, chairman/CEO/global chief creative officer, R/GA
Click here to read Part II of this series. Hear from…
Rich Silverstein, co-chairman/creative director, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco
Stephen Dickstein, global president/managing partner, The Sweet Shop
Phil Geier, former Interpublic Group CEO and current chairman, The Geier Group, New York
Click here to read Part III of this series. Hear from directors…
Joe Pytka, award-winning director, PYTKA
Bryan Buckley, award-winning director, Hungry Man
Joe Sedelmaier, ground-breaking director
Click here to read Part IV of this series. Hear from:
Dan Wieden, founder and CEO, Wieden+Kennedy
Susan Credle. chief creative officer, Leo Burnett North America
Noan Murro, award-winning director Noam Murro, Biscuit Filmworks, Los Angeles
Click here to read Part V of this series. Hear from:
Tony Granger, global chief creative officer, Young & Rubicam
Kevin Roddy, chief creative officer, Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH), NY
Kristi VandenBosch, CEO, Publicis & Hal Riney
Click here to read part VI of this series. Hear from:
David Lubars, chairman/chief creative officer, BBDO North America
Jon Kamen, chairman and CEO of @radical.media
Stefan Sonnenfeld, president/managing director of Company 3
Click here to read part VII of this series. Hear from:
Steve Simpson, Ogilvy & Mather’s chief creative officer, North America
Bob Jeffrey, worldwide chairman and CEO of JWT.
Click here to read part VIII of this series. Hear from:
Jim Morris, GM and executive VP of production at Pixar Studios
Don Marinelli of Carnegie Mellon University’s Master of Entertainment Technology Degree Program
