Whereas SHOOT focused on the give and take between editors and directors in last month’s Spring Directors Series, this time around we look at collaborations within the post community that play such a large part in helping to creatively shape projects. We explore several long-term relationships which have spawned almost telepathic short-hand communication between artists.
Deep roots
Jake Jacobsen broke into the business some 10 years ago as an assistant to editor Sherri Margulies at Crew Cuts, New York. It was an education he never forgot and which is ongoing, still often involving the same collaborator, colorist Chris Ryan of Nice Shoes, New York.
“Sherri would work a lot with Chris and director Joe Pytka,” recalled Jacobsen. “And to be her assistant working with these great talents was a wonderful experience. I learned so much about film and art direction. At the outset I felt I was in way over my head. But I started to get my bearings and make a firm foundation for myself thanks to having such great people to work with and collaborate with early on in my career. Chris is very giving–when I first came into the industry, he helped me with the terminology, showed me what he was doing, talked me through his approaches to color, mid-tones, vignettes, getting the film to be the best it can possibly be. And Chris is someone who I have continued to work with regularly over the years once I became an editor.”
Jacobsen has been a full-fledged editor at Crew Cuts for the past seven years. “When I first started cutting spots, I didn’t have relationships with agency art directors so much. This meant I had to figure out what their sensibilities were. Helping me on this front was Chris who has a great sense of art directors. From the beginning as an editor, I found myself building a three-way relationship with Chris and agency art directors and then I became lucky enough to develop my own relationships with the agency creatives. This helped me refine my own sense of where they wanted the film to be, the direction and overall look of a spot or campaign. Chris made me a better editor back then and he continues to do so now.”
Trust is a major factor all the way around, spanning clients, agencies and artists, said Jacobsen. “I can spend the first couple of hours at the transfer, helping to set the look and getting an overall look with Chris and then simply leave him to do his thing. And it’s not like I have to choose Chris for a project. When asked whom they like to transfer with, established as well as new creatives have Chris at the top of their lists like he’s at the top of mine. There’s a real trust there. As much as ninety percent of my work is with Chris. And I’m constantly learning from him. I just did a job with him shot with the RED camera. It was my first RED job but Chris already had a lot of experience with RED and he took me through the process.
Among Jacobsen’s and Ryan’s many collaborations have been spots for such clients as Ford, Time Warner Cable, Texaco, GE, Toys r Us, Pepsi and Dairy Queen.
The latter includes the SHOOT Top Spot “Inhaling” in which people eating Dairy Queen’s Chicken FlameThrower Sandwich consciously inhale when they talk. Otherwise, flames will shoot out of their mouths. Sure enough, several speak without inhaling and things get hysterically hot. Enhancing the visual effects (out of Quiet Man–now Semerad, N.Y.) on the spot, which was directed by harvest‘s Baker Smith, was Ryan’s handiwork. “Chris was able to create multiple passes for each flame, as well as passes for the actors with and without flames. It helped give a realism to the effects, making them more integrated into the scenes. It helped set the look for the effects and created an overall cohesiveness for the spot, and a great end result. It was a great experience compositing shots together and going back and forth with each other.”
The Dairy Queen commercials Ryan and Jacobsen have teamed on over the years have also been stellar in their presentation of food, noted Jacobsen. “There’s a transition in color, tone and all elements with Chris, and this especially applies to food. He reconciles the food in the live-action storytelling with the food in the product shot. And agency art directors usually can pick from several great looks that Chris has provided.”
At press time, Jacobsen and Ryan were slated to embark on more Dairy Queen work, a 14-spot Time Warner Cable campaign and a Maxwell House job.
Dos “Interesting Men”
Four years ago, back when he was at The Mill, New York, colorist Tom Poole met editor Jeff Ferruzzo of Outside, New York. They teamed on some work directed by Matt Lenski of bicoastal/international Epoch Films, including an MTV project.
“I had come over to New York from Europe [The Mill, London] and started to learn about baseball and the Mets,” recollected Poole. “Jeff and I shared a passion for the Mets and found out we also had similar personalities as well as sensibilities about film. Initially in New York, I found things were more ad agency driven from the color correction side, with editors often being the voice of the director. The editor spoke to the director about the edit and the look of things, so I found it important to strike up relationships with editors. I did that with Jeff and we’ve been working together fairly regularly. We are good friends.”
The most notable of those collaborations is the ongoing Dos Equis campaign centering on the “Most Interesting Man In The World” out of Euro RSCG, New York.
In 2007, the first year of this campaign, Poole was at The Mill, N.Y. He then moved over to Company 3, N.Y, teaming with Ferruzzo on the Dos Equis campaign in ’08 and again this year.
“The Dos Equis work has shaped our collaborative relationship,” said Poole. “From the very first spot in the campaign, I fully realized how much fun it can be when you are allowed to work extensively with an editor. Every year when the Dos Equis spots come around, we get excited. He’ll email me a month before in anticipation over what they’re going to shoot next. It’s been gratifying to see how the popularity of the campaign has grown a great deal over the years.”
The campaign has benefited from continuity that goes beyond agency Euro RSCG as well as Messrs. Poole and Ferruzzo.
Steve Miller of bicoastal/international @radical.media has directed while DP Eric Schmidt has lensed all three years of the campaign.
“So much of the work we all do in the industry is clean, crisp and sellable, which of course can be of great value in advertising and marketing,” noted Poole.
“But Dos Equis goes beyond that and reaches another plateau so to speak. We’re instead looking to make film look old, archival, as if it’s been stored in a basement in Cuba for the past 40 years. While the norm is trying to upgrade images, this campaign is the opposite. We want it to look grainy. For Jeff and I, the campaigns are like whacky period pieces that have grown each year, allowing us to experiment and work with 16mm film, old black and white reversal, old print stocks. Even the modern-day scenes are shot differently–using 35mm negative, making a print and transferring that print to give you a slightly softer, more filmic quality so the images aren’t as overly sharp and fully detailed as 35mm negative can be. That was the look established on the first round of the spots and we’ve built on it each year. In this last round, some stuff was even shot on a Bolex.”
This building process, observed Poole, “took my creative relationship with Jeff to the next level. It has made it much easier when we work on other projects now and into the future.” Other collaborations between the two include Old Navy fare (shot on RED), as well as visual effects driven spots for Dr. Scholl’s, work that’s in a far different world than that in which Dos Equis resides.
“The Dos Equis collaboration has made all our projects together richer and more collaborative,” said Poole. “It’s been great to feed off of one another creatively.”
Feedback
SHOOT also garnered feedback from other artisans relative to their working relationships in post. Here’s a sampling:
Charlie Cusumano, editor, Red Car, New York
There are many talented people I’ve worked with since becoming an editor. One consistent relationship I’ve had is with Rex Recker, a mixer extraordinaire at audioEngine [New York]. I think he’s one of the top mixers in town, and he’s also become a good friend. A good collaborator is someone that goes beyond the expected..to do something additional that I haven’t thought of. Rex does just that..adding a sound, or improving a music edit. A good collaboration takes time, and when it works, both people can be themselves in session, and just talk plainly and honestly together. That’s important.
We recently mixed some spots together that were budgetary challenged. He was really able to improve them and get them to a better place.
Bill Marmor, editor/owner, Rex Edit, Venice, Calif.
I have always approached a project as being part of a team both creatively and from a production perspective. Throughout my career I’ve worked closely with a number of people. However, colorist Mike Pethel of Company 3 has been a constant collaborator over the years. He brings out the best in the film and his speed and accuracy help our clients keep the session moving. Without saying anything, he and I gravitate toward the same color styles and palettes. Many times we search creatively for the right direction, his openness to my ideas and his talent and experience guide us to the right look. Ultimately this gives the agency something better than originally envisioned. Of course this is the job of the colorist, but with our ongoing relationship, his instincts have become my instincts. His initial direction is usually what I am thinking. On occasions when I can’t be at the sessions I’m confident that Mike will be able to consider my point of view as If I were. He and I have collaborated on all the Carl’s Jr. projects I have cut over the past 12 years. With the important influence of the agency, Mendelsohn Zien, to push us further, we really created our own style for this long time client. This symbiotic relationship creates better work and allows for a more interesting and fuller exploration of what the potential of any project can be.
Michael Saia, editor, jumP, New York
Relationships with mixers and sounds designers have for me always been pretty close, monogamous, if you will. I’ve always taken a particularly hands on and meticulous approach to sound effects and music, the entire sonic landscape, and it requires a shorthand with those that I’m collaborating with.
Stephane Guyot of Manic is a guy I met through another editor, and we immediately connected. I don’t think that I’ve mixed a half dozen projects with someone other than him since then. When I took on the “City Orchestra” (Cricket Wireless) project for Jim Gartner and Element 79, I was immediately introduced to Adam Schiff, a very talented guy who was on location with Jim as musical director. The agency had hired us to do a director’s version, I suppose as a sort of template and/or illustration of Jim’s vision for the piece. While cutting with Adam and Jim I advocated strongly for Stephane as mixer. For one thing, I wanted it to happen in New York where I could be directly involved and additionally the musical nature of the spot plays directly into Stephane’s wheelhouse.
I had done a significant amount of sound design in the rough cut but had designs on quite a bit more. It was important that the mounting intensity of the weave of musical performance never became a “track.” I didn’t want it to feel at all produced, but rather completely spontaneous and sonically integrated into the city scenes we’re seeing. Stephane took it and ran with it. We had one conversation to discuss the concept, and my (Adam’s, Jim’s) intentions, and it was–“I’ll see you in the studio tomorrow.” When I got there to see what he had been up to, it was all but done for me. He had beautifully built on what I had started in the soundscape, added a few things Adam had been playing around with, and obviously, completely understood the intent with utter clarity. The aforementioned shorthand has never been so apparent or necessary given the complexity of the piece. I probably spent more time playing around and tweaking minutia than I needed to, but a guy needs to have some fun.
Best part was playing it for Jim and Adam–knocked out.
