It seems only fitting that The Hoffman Brothers–siblings Mark and Matt Hoffman–directed “Brothers,” a new Peeps television commercial. After all, the story centers on two brothers, with the older boy regaling his younger brother with a seemingly never-ending list of the ways people enjoy eating, creating and playing with the marshmallow treats.
“We loved that they were brothers,” Sandy Greenberg said of the directing duo. Co-president of The Terri & Sandy Solution, the NYC-based agency that created the “Express Your Peepsonality”-themed campaign, Greenberg reasoned that the brotherly bond shared by Mark and Matt Hoffman put them more in tune with the relationship depicted between the two boys in the :30 as well as the nearly minute-long web video chosen as this issue’s SHOOT Top Spot.
But it wasn’t just their family ties that won The Hoffman Brothers, who are repped by Harvest, the gig. “They did a treatment for us that was really, really funny and really, really entertaining, and their work was very cinematic,” Greenberg shared. “We felt that they would do a really good job of telling the story and telling it in a filmic way.”
“Brothers” is actually Peeps’ first-ever live-action spot and the brand’s first TV effort in years, related Greenberg, who said Peeps’ parent company Just Born is ramping up its marketing efforts these days.
Casting “They had a really solid idea,” Matt Hoffman said, “and we knew if we found the right kids, it could be a sweet piece.”
A four-year-old named Theodore Gobbell played the younger child, and because of his age the directors could only shoot with him for six hours a day. “It was a little bit risky to go with the younger kid,” Matt Hoffman acknowledged. “But he was at that age where you’re just sort of in a state of wonderment.”
Miles Lyon took on the role of the older boy. It was a demanding part for the actor to play, requiring a consistently enthusiastic delivery. “I think Matt did a really good job of keeping him upbeat the whole time, and Miles was great. He was remembering the lines even better than we could feed him the lines,” Mark Hoffman said.
Also contributing to the evenness of the delivery was the fact that the directors book-ended each segment of dialogue with a few phrases at the start and a few more at the finish. That way, Miles had time to get amped up. “Somewhere in there you would find a three-second passage where he’s going really fast,” Mark Hoffman explained.
The spot was also shot in chronological order, which was also likely helpful to editor Mark Nickelsburg of Homestead Editorial, New York. Nickelsburg had quite a bit of dialogue to get into the spot. In fact, the dialogue heard in “Brothers” is much more dense than it was in the original script. “We had probably about twice as much dialogue in there,” Mark Hoffman said, noting the spot just got funnier as more examples of Peeps fun were added.
The Hoffman Brothers shot “Brothers” on location in Los Angeles with DP David Wilson. The main setting was a house that offered a variety of spots to shoot indoors as well as outdoors. There was even a treehouse in the backyard–built for a shoot for the CBS television series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation–that the directors were able to take advantage of. “In that original script, it was maybe four setups, and we wanted to expand that to broaden the scope of the spot,” Matt Hoffman said of the multiple scenarios featured in “Brothers.” “Mark really pushed for that.”
While Mark Hoffman tends to focus more on the visual side of their projects, figuring out the storyboards and working with the DP, Matt Hoffman concentrates on casting and performance. “It’s good that we have our separate areas to work on,” Mark Hoffman said, “and there’s a lot of discussion back and forth, too.”
Wilson shot “Brothers” with an ALEXA, relying on natural light as much as possible. Mark Hoffman pointed out, “We didn’t want to make it overly sweet, and if we had overly lit it with beautiful backlight, it could have gotten kind of cheesy.”
The child actors performed incredibly well. Matt Hoffman mused, “If you cast the right kids, and if you create the world for them, they are so honest.”
