I’ve been pigeonholed into doing a lot of sports and action stuff," says director Jason Smith of bicoastal Bob Industries. True enough: spots for Puma, Major League Baseball, Volvo and Sony PlayStation are among the Venice, Calif.- and London-based director’s credits.
Smith, though, points out that his music videos for a couple of U.K.-based bands are more representative of his capabilities. He cites "Late at Night" for Electronic, as well as "Peakin" for Bleachin, both completed out of London-based Flynn Productions, which represents Smith for music videos in Europe.
The Electronic video is a narrative, performance-based piece that follows a band of young men as they wreck havoc about town in the course of one night. The video begins with the foursome in a car en route to a nighttime hot spot. They joke coarsely with each other, while the driver holds the wheel in one hand, a beer in the other. Along the way, they have a minor run-in with another car. Exiting their vehicle, the four pounce upon the other car—yelling, hitting the hood with their fists, and spilling the remainder of their drinks on the windshield—as the "offender" sits fearfully within.
With this incident kicking off the evening, the music begins, and the team moves on to the next in its series of exploits, including physically harassing women in a nightclub, and starting up a fight by the bar.
"I’m moving more into character-based storytelling, with [work that has] an overall cinematic look," says Smith, using "Late at Night" as an example. "What I want to do is direct movies."
Although in the U.S. he is frequently called on for action-oriented work, Smith notes that his commercials often have "quite a lot of storytelling in them." One of his recent spots out of Bob Industries is Nike’s "Covert Texas" via Wieden+Kennedy, Portland, Ore. The commercial opens with two-time Tour de France champ Lance Armstrong biking on a panoramic, mountain road. As he pedals along, a cargo truck approaches from behind and, honking wildly, tries to pass. Annoyed by one another’s presence, the trucker and the biker begin a game of who can pass whom—much in the tradition of the film Duel, the ’71 made-for-TV movie helmed by Steven Spielberg. At one point, when Armstrong is riding alongside the truck, it crowds him off the lane. Armstrong then races back up to the truck, bumps it with his arm—the one wearing the Nike watch—and sends the multi-ton vehicle over the side of the cliff, where it explodes. The spot ends with a shot of Armstrong’s Nike XTR Covert watch—which survived the battle unscathed.
"I like to push the look, and create an atmosphere in everything I do," states Smith. "With Nike, I [accentuated] the intensity of the battle. At first the camera’s really in tight with a close-up on Lance Armstrong. Then you cut to a really wide shot—for the audience, that’s like a breather—and then, bam, you’re in close again. I deliberately left out the medium shots. It’s a technique in action that creates energy."
One of Bob Industries’ managing partners/executive producers, T. K. Knowles, points out that "Covert Texas" was done in-camera, without visual effects or much other postproduction. So the truck falling off the rock, the crash, and Armstrong’s body double riding in the two-foot space between the truck and rock wall were real.
"Problems had cropped up all over the place [in production]," Knowles explains. One key obstacle surfaced two days before the shoot. The local government of Almería, Spain, where the spot was to be filmed, denied Smith a permit to throw the truck off the mountain. The officials cited the environmental hazards of the demolition, as well as its proximity to a public roadway.
Utilizing his problem-solving skills, Smith quickly found another location for the truck drop—a privately owned rock quarry, also in Almería. "Jason’s been directing awhile," comments Knowles. "He’s very versatile and creative in his approaches to getting things done."
Sportsman
Smith made his directorial debut in 1992, during the Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain. At the time, he was living in London, working as a first and second assistant director on commercials. He decided to go to the Barcelona games, and using footage he shot there with a Super-8 camera, he produced and edited a :90 piece on the Olympics. The film was purchased by the European division of MTV, and by the publicity office of the organizers of the Barcelona Games for promotional use.
The Olympic effort also caught the eye of Young Guns, a division of London-based production house Challenge. Smith signed on there as a director in ’92, and remained for about a year, directing a campaign for the River Island Clothing Company via Bartle Bogle Hegarty, London, as well as a client-direct anti-drug PSA for the Central Office of Information (COI). (The COI is an organization run by the U.K. government that procures publicity services, from the private sector or elsewhere, for other government entities.)
After his stint at Young Guns, Smith signed with bicoastal/international Propaganda Films in ’93 for spot representation. It was there that he first met Chuck Ryant, who then served as East Coast-based head of sales for Propaganda. Ryant is now a founding partner/executive producer at Bob.
Based at Propaganda’s London office, Smith completed spots including Gatorade’s "Football" and "Bridge" via TBWA/London, and Puma’s "Sheffield" via CME KHBB, London. In ’96, he departed Propaganda, signing with bicoastal/ international @radical.media for U.S. representation, and Produktion, London, for European work.
Although he remained at Produktion for two years, Smith left @radical.media after only a few months, shifting his U.S. representation to Crossroads Films, bicoastal and Chicago. In ’97, when Ann Egbert, Smith’s executive producer at Crossroads, departed to open her own production company—Link Entertainment, New York—Smith followed her there.
Smith left Link for bicoastal Reactor Films in ’98, rejoining Knowles and Ryant, who were executive producers there. Later that year, he followed the pair when they departed to start up Bob Industries. New York-based N ur Eye Films executive producer O’Grady was the third principal in the venture. (O’Grady maintains his executive producer status at both shops, but the two companies are separate entities.) All three principals are managing partners/executive producers.
Currently, Smith is represented by Bob Industries in the U.S. and Japan, and is handled in Europe by the London office of bicoastal/international The Artists Company. Some of his recent European work includes the COI’s "Floorboards," "Cubist" and "Crossbar" via Saatchi & Saatchi, London.
In addition to Nike’s "Covert Texas," a few of Smith’s U.S. credits include Oldsmobile’s "Inside" and "Home" via Leo Burnett Co., Chicago; and Sony PlayStation’s "Syphon Filter" via Butler, Shine & Stern, Sausalito, Calif.
"Syphon Filter" begins with a suit-clad twenty-something man walking on a dark street. Presumably on his way home after work, the man pretends he’s playing a video game. Some kids playing a game of basketball in a park turn into animated attackers that take aim at the man. Before they are able to fire, the businessman shoots them down. Further along the way, the story’s protagonist sees a garbage man, whom he transforms into an animated alien, also ready to shoot. Once again, the businessman gets him first. The "game" ends, and the trash collector waves to the tired worker as he passes by. The young man smiles in return.
Although they are filled with action, adventure and the occasional image of mayhem, Smith believes that his spots are driven by story and feeling. "I don’t like violence at all," he says. "I’m inspired by narrative storytelling, and the emotions surrounding the action."µ
