Working on movie trailers is nothing new for seasoned feature director Phil Joanou, whose film credits include State of Grace, Final Analysis and Entropy. But recently Joanou has helmed four trailers for movies that don’t even exist. The faux trailers are, in fact, three spots created for Sun Microsystems via Lowe Lintas & Partners, San Francisco, and a PSA for the Florida Tobacco Pilot Program’s "Truth" campaign, through Crispin Porter+ Bogusky Advertising, Miami. "It was fun for me because I’ve done it in reverse about six different times," says Joanou, who is repped by Villains, bicoastal and Chicago.
"I was really attracted to the idea of using the principles of filmmaking and cinema in a commercial context," Joanou explains. His Sun Microsystems spots include "Critical Decision," "The Dot" and "Huge." At first, "Critical Decision" gives the impression that it’s promoting a corporate thriller, and not a network solutions company. The spot’s montage and voiceover narration work together to imply that "Jack," the ad’s protagonist, is fearlessly going up against forces bigger than he is. Requisite genre images of surveillance, car chases and moodily lit executive offices further signal that a thriller is on its way to the multiplex. The faux trailer’s true intentions are revealed when the voiceover states, "The dot in dot-com production."
Joanou was intrigued with the challenge of "trying to create something that looked like it was edited down from a feature film. I consciously tried to use techniques and styles so [the spots] felt like films as opposed to commercials." The director told veteran feature DP Conrad Hall, who lensed "Critical Decision," that " ‘we’re going to do scenes; we’re going to do coverage and then pick the piece or two we’re going to shoot.’ For instance, there’s a [scene] in a restaurant. We did a master of that and coverage of the two principals talking. In the spot, it’s just three quick cuts, but it feels like dialogue coverage. It feels like you’re missing part of a scene [from a feature]."
Joanou points out that the Lowe Lintas & Partners team did not have storyboards for the ads he helmed for the campaign. "On ‘Critical Decision’ and ‘The Dot,’ for instance, they would have a script of all the beats they were looking for," recalls Joanou. "They allowed me to bring a lot to the party. For instance, I brought the whole idea that Jack is being watched and surveilled in ‘Critical Decision.’ "
Dramatic features such as The Conversation, Enemy of the State, and The Insider served as inspiration for "Critical Decision." Joanou says a number of sci-fi films, including Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Poltergeist and Alien II influenced his work on "The Dot."
Set to a dramatic score, "The Dot" features images of malfunctioning equipment and terrified employees, as well as ominous traveling shots of various passageways. The ad climaxes when a giant black orb bursts into an executive conference room. A moment later, the sphere emits powerful light rings that thrust the awed honchos back up against the room’s walls. The narrator intones: "The Dot. Your competition will never know what hit them."
"The process [of making ‘The Dot’] was very similar to ‘Critical Decision,’" notes Joanou, who used DP Jeff Cronenweth, who shot Fight Club, for "The Dot." "I was trying to hire feature DPs, who also do commercials, so they would appreciate and understand that we were shooting portions of scenes as opposed to just a shot."
Cronenweth and Joanou also worked together on another faux trailer, the anti-tobacco PSA "Secrets of a Tobacco Executive," out of Crispin Porter+Bogusky, which plays as a trailer for a conspiracy film, with one character asking, "What is the connection between a fifty-one-year-old executive and a bunch of teenagers?" The suspenseful spot answers that question by detailing a town’s gradual realization that one of its model citizens has a dark side: He’s a tobacco company executive.
"They wanted something that felt like corporate thriller meets teen thriller," says Joanou of the ad. "Mainly what we would talk about were genres of films that we wanted to lean towards. A lot of their dialogue was pre-set in the script, which was dialogue only. They allowed me the luxury of determining [the locations] where a lot of the action might take place.
"That spot, at least in content, resembles the original direction they gave me," he continues. "There was a lot of intense, wide-ranging collaboration on the three Sun spots. On the anti-smoking campaign, we were much more specific from the get-go. We had a lot less money for that one.’ The PSA, unlike the other faux-trailers, was made for presentation in movie theatres and runs two minutes instead of as a :30.
Amazing Time
Joanou studied theatre at the University of California at Los Angeles for two years, before transferring to the University of Southern California film school. There the student film he directed, Last Chance Dance, caught the eye of Steven Spielberg, who hired Joanou to helm two episodes of the television series Amazing Stories.
In addition to doing feature work, Joanou has also directed music videos and documentaries, including U2: Rattle and Hum, 7 Up in America (winner of a Peabody Award), and 14 Up in America. The last two films are U.S. versions of the British director Michael Apted’s documentary series.
Joanou directed a few European spots and one series of American ads (through now defunct O. Pictures) in the early 1990s, but then dropped out of spotmaking until last year. Joanou explains the gap: "I got caught up in my feature career and O. Pictures dissolved. I just drifted away from it. My last experience directing spots in the early ’90s was very frustrating in that there was a tremendous amount of interference in the making of the commercial. It was an unpleasant experience."
Last fall, Villains principal/executive producer Robin Benson asked the director if he’d like to give admaking another shot. She assured Joanou that Villains would try to get him jobs that had a supportive creative environment, and Joanou came aboard. "I have to say, they’ve been true to their word," he enthuses.
His most recent spot project is Nike’s "Horror," via Wieden+Kennedy, Portland, Ore., which premiered during the Olympics, but was pulled by NBC, the network airing the games, over objections from viewers. The ad is a parody of the slasher film genre, and shows distance runner Suzy Hamilton outrunning a villain that looks like Jason, the killer in the hockey mask from the Friday The 13th series of films.
Joanou isn’t surprised that ad agencies hire him to make cinematic spots, but he’s also enthusiastic about helming spots that aren’t necessarily movie-like. "I am looking forward to doing some work that’s more in the commercial vein," says Joanou, "something that’s more about the shot, and about specificity of the content that usually accompanies a commercial approach. I’m excited about doing that."µ
