After shooting spots and insert work for McDonald’s for over 12 years, director David Deahl can sum up his relationship with the fast-food giant in one sentence: "I keep pushing the envelope, and they keep sealing it back up."
The envelope glue has begun to loosen recently. In "McDonald’s Millennium Project" via DDB, Chicago, Deahl utilizes high-tech music and camera work that evokes The Matrix to make a meal at the fast food restaurant look both delicious and hip. Deahl says McDonald’s "has been on a campaign to try and lift the restrictions on how their food is shot," and he’s glad about it. "They can’t cheat the size of the meat. They can’t cheat the size of the portions. But they don’t have to make the sandwich so perfect that it looks like plastic."
Deahl, who directs spots via his own company, Big Deahl Productions, Chicago, says DDB took a unique approach in planning "McDonald’s Millennium Project." "They gave us complete control over the creative on that," he recalls. "It was a special project for McDonald’s. They were looking for a new look for their food. So it was up to myself and other studios around the country to do what-ever we thought would look the best."
The trick, he explains, was making the footage exciting enough to be used on its own, but blendable enough to be reused for inserts. "When you shoot tabletop for McDonald’s, the question always comes up, ‘Can I use this in the library?’ I wanted to give them a little more of a contemporary look, without blowing their boots off."
Deahl came up with ideas quickly. "There have always been a lot of things I’ve wanted to do for them," he explains. "But at the same time, I had to think, ‘If I present it like this, are they going to think that I should have gone down this track?’ There was a lot of second-guessing."
The director’s efforts yielded impressive results. "We did some things that I knew would be palatable to [McDonald’s], like a lot of high-key backgrounds that were really clean and blasted out," he says. "Another thing I introduced was the soundtrack, which was a little bit out there, and I also did some Flame effects. To get that Matrix feeling of coming around the sandwich, fries and cup, we used motion control. Then we quickly went in really tight, then went to real time—real slow—and then quickly came out."
While he didn’t have absolute freedom—"The food’s always got to look great. It’s not like you can throw a bunch of filters over the camera and whack out the color on it"—the project gave Deahl a great amount of responsibility, which he enjoys. He plays an active role in post, and says he’d be happiest if he could edit all of his own spots. "It’s a tough sell," he admits. "There are a few guys in the country that can do it, but they’re usually live-action guys."
Unlike many tabletoppers, Deahl is not adverse to a little live action. In "Food of Love" and "Advertising 101" for Coco’s restaurants out of J. Walter Thompson, San Francisco, Deahl interspersed quick shots of the restaurant’s food with close-ups of a delighted-looking actress. The spot, which Deahl edited himself, exemplifies what he calls "lifestyle tabletop," which means that combining footage of the product with reaction shots from actors gives tabletop spots a warmer, less-static feel. Deahl is happiest when he’s shooting both tabletop and other live-action elements. "A lot of times you get boards where they’ve split it between two directors," he says, "but I usually do the whole thing. I can lend a single vision to the whole project."
Expansion
Thanks to several new hires, Deahl is more confident than ever in his production company. CFO Sue Goetz and line producer Molly Carey recently joined the Big Deahl staff, as did executive producer Noreen Szeluga and tabletop director/ cameraman Mark Klein, both of whom were formerly with Peter Elliott Productions, Chicago.
Photo finish
Deahl has been interested in photography since he was a teenager. "I first got involved in stills when I was in the eighth grade," he recalls. "I had one of those cameras where you had to understand shutter speeds and depth-of-field focus to be able to use it, and I just started shooting all over the place." It soon proved to be more than a hobby. When he was 17, he sold his first photographs—to the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Several years later, he shot the first cover of the reissued Life magazine.
After graduating from the University of Iowa, Iowa City, Deahl decided to move into advertising. "I knew the only way you can really make a decent living was to go into commercial photography," he explains. "Even though I’d spent time in New York, most of my family was in the Midwest, so I settled in Chicago. I did a few short stints as an apprentice at a couple of different studios, and then I left and went out on my own. I got into print [advertising]. Although I’d shot a lot of people when I first came here, I realized very quickly that Chicago was a package town. I started shooting a lot of products, and that’s how I got into the tabletop work."
As much as he craves variety, Deahl wants to remain in the tabletop realm. "For a while, I went off on this tangent where I was shooting cars, and all my tabletop and special effects business just evaporated," he remembers. "[Agencies] thought, ‘He must not be interested in doing tabletop anymore.’ It’s been a very calculated and very careful expansion to be able to stay in tabletop, and yet be able to do some of these live-action things as well."
