spots didn’t run on as large a scale as he had hoped. "I was heartbroken that the nationals wouldn’t take it," he says. "It’s one thing when you’re doing commercials for selling hamburgers or cars, but it’s another when you’re doing it to save a life."
Another series of Hoagland-helmed ALF "Truth" ads—dubbed the "Web Letter Campaign"—features different teens talking about tobacco-related issues on a Web site, www.truth.com. These ads, which include "Vanessa/Crawl," "Venus/Tolerance," "Larc/Cars" and "Mike/Responsibility," are filmed to appear as though they were shot with a Webcam. They have proven to be less controversial. The director also recently wrapped work on three spots for the Florida Tobacco Pilot Program, via CPB. The ads, "Golden Fishhook," "Golden Sloth," and "Golden Shovel," which all feature teens giving fictitious awards to tobacco execs for the harm that cigarettes have caused, and capturing the footage of the presentation on hidden camera.
Hoagland’s anti-tobacco idealism started way back when he was a kid in Salt Lake City. "I was actually raised by a parent who was smoking in a Volkswagen Beetle, and I used to ask her to roll down the window," Hoagland remembers. "I’m that perfect case of a kid who got exposed to second-hand smoke and didn’t have an opportunity to get away from it. When you’re stuck inside a car, there’s not a lot of room."
Hoagland’s issue-related fare is well suited to his style—he loves working with real people. He got his start in the genre, he says, through luck. Straight out of New York University Film School, Hoagland landed his first paying job shooting a documentary on the anthropological effects of the Exxon Valdez oil spill on the town of Valdez, Alaska, which aired on Britain’s Channel 4. When MTV learned of Hoagland’s ability to shoot film, the network hired him to shoot MTV Sports, which was hosted by Dan Cortez.
"I got known for doing the MTV Sports stuff, and from that Burger King came and said, ‘Can you turn MTV Sports into BKTV?’ So, at the age of twenty-seven, I got a national Burger King campaign for a year and a half," explains Hoagland, who did the job as a freelancer. After that, New York-based The Directors’ Chair, a division of EUE/ Screen Gems, New York, knocked on Hoagland’s door, and "then I got known as a real-people director," he says. He signed with Redtree for commercial work in 1996. (Hoagland also maintains an affiliation with Beyond Our Reality Productions, New York, for promo work.)
While the "Truth" campaign has been keeping him busy, Hoagland has shot other work in the past year. Last November he shot "Arrow" for Direct Hit via Boston-based Gearon Hoffman, and Pinnacle’s "Across the World," through Arnold. The Pinnacle work is documentary style, featuring Jason Zuback, the world champion long-ball driver, trying to shoot a golf ball past Big Ben.
On deck for Hoagland are a few more ALF anti-tobacco ads through Burrell Communications, Chicago. In the midst of all this, Hoagland says he’s started writing—so don’t rule out a feature one of these days. But so far, Hoagland remains most proud of his work on "Body Bags." "When I see it, I still get goosebumps," he says. "For me, what’s really special [about these spots] is you don’t normally get the opportunity to do commercials that save people’s lives."µ
