DGA nominees discuss diversity.
By Alison Sloane Gaylin
There aren’t many commercial directors who can say they started a dance craze. But this year, the directing team Joe Public—a.k.a. Adam Cameron and Simon Cole—introduced millions of New York Yankees fans to the "El Duque." The dance, which was named for high-kicking pitcher Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez, debuted on an ad the British duo directed for adidas, and it wasn’t long before it became hotter than the Macarena with the stadium crowd. "El Duque Dance" was one of six spots that earned Joe Public its first Directors Guild of America (DGA) nomination for best commercial director of ’99. As pleased as they are with the DGA nod, Cameron and Cole would rather talk about their contribution to pop culture. "We went to Yankee Stadium, and in the bleachers, they were all doing the dance and quoting lines from the commercial," says Cole.
The spot, out of Leagas Delaney, San Francisco, depicts a crowd of hip New York clubgoers mimicking Hernandez’s trademark pitching technique on the dance floor, as giant video screens show the real El Duque in action. When fellow Yankee pitcher David Cone asks a woman in the club what the dance is called, she rolls her eyes at his ignorance before responding, "It’s the El Duque." At the end of the spot, Cone is shown in the men’s room, practicing some goofy moves as he attempts to invent his own dance.
"That shoot was particularly difficult," says Cole. "We were working with Dave Cone, who is an inexperienced actor—a sports star."
"There were a lot of pressures on the schedule," Cameron adds. "When you shoot with celebrities, you don’t tend to get too long with them, so you don’t get too many chances of getting the right take."
Joe Public, which is represented by bicoastal Headquarters, had only one day to shoot "El Duque Dance." Fortunately, they’d worked with Cone on adidas’ "Rest That Arm," also for Leagas Delaney. "What you’ve got to do with these celebrities is find out what it is they are confident in, what they do well, and use that to the best advantage," explains Cole. "There’s something about that slightly startled, deer-in-the-headlights look that Dave Cone has that we’d recognized from shooting the previous spot, and we worked with that. If we were trying to get Dave Cone to behave like Robin Williams, then we’d have been in trouble."
Potpourri
Shot in black and white, the straightforward "El Duque Dance" looks very different from Joe Public’s five other DGA entries. "Sponsor," for Snapple via Deutsch, New York, is a parody of public service ads, in which a sincere host outlines Snapple’s efforts to "keep young fruit from going bad," as child-sized raspberries, strawberries and peaches are shown cavorting at a Snapple-sponsored fruit camp. As opposed to "El Duque Dance," Cameron says "Sponsor" required "weeks of preparation and exhaustive research into making the little fruits just right. And we used all the conventions of ‘beautifying commercials’—the swing and tilt lenses, and the beautification of a place and people."
Amazon.com’s "Two Minutes," which Joe Public directed for FCB,
Judge Upholds Dismissal Of Involuntary Manslaughter Charge Against Alec Baldwin In “Rust” Shooting
A New Mexico judge has upheld her decision to dismiss an involuntary manslaughter charge against Alec Baldwin in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the set of a Western movie.
In a ruling Thursday, state District Court Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer stood by her July decision to dismiss an involuntary manslaughter charge against Baldwin. She said prosecutors did not raise any factual or legal arguments that would justify reversing her decision.
"Because the state's amended motion raises arguments previously made, and arguments that the state elected not to raise earlier, the court does not find the amended motion well taken," the judge wrote, adding that the request was also untimely.
A spokesperson for Baldwin's lawyers said Friday that they had no immediate reaction to teh decision.
The case was thrown out halfway through trial on allegations that police and prosecutors withheld evidence from the defense in the 2021 death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of the film "Rust."
Baldwin's trial was upended by revelations that ammunition was brought into the Santa Fe County sheriff's office in March by a man who said it could be related to Hutchins' killing. Prosecutors said they deemed the ammo unrelated and unimportant, while Baldwin's lawyers say investigators "buried" the evidence in a separate case file and filed a successful motion to dismiss.
Special prosecutor Kari Morrissey can now decide whether to appeal to a higher court.
Baldwin, the lead actor and co-producer for "Rust," was pointing a gun at Hutchins during a rehearsal on a movie set outside Santa Fe in October 2021 when the revolver went off, killing Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza. Baldwin has said he pulled back the hammer โ... Read More