When Ivan Zacharias walks into a conference room to meet with agency creatives, they don’t see an award winning director. They see a 27-year-old who looks a decade younger. And they ask him to fetch coffee or soda.
"It happens on the set, too, and it’s very funny. For a long time, I’ve been the youngest person on a job," says Zacharias, who started directing commercials while still a student at Prague’s FAMU film school. "The crews are usually older; they’d think I was some runner or assistant, and they wouldn’t listen to me until they realized I was the director."
Word is getting out about the Czech director. Zacharias’ very first commercial, "Pillsner," for Pillsner Urquell, produced by Stillking Films, Prague, via Young & Rubicam, Prague, won a ’94 Golden Drum at the Advertising Festival of New Europe. Zacharias has since signed with London-based Blink; that company’s international arm, Stink, represents him for work outside of the U.K.
Zacharias recently entered the dot-com market with three Stink-produced spots—"Aviation," "Meat Cleaver," and "Fashion"—for eTour, via Fallon McElligott, New York. The ads illustrate how eTour brings your interests right to the front door. In "Aviation," for example, a small plane lands on a highway and proceeds to navigate itself to a suburban neighborhood, where it turns into a driveway. Standing in front of the house is a little boy with a toy airplane.
Though the spots are airing all over the U.S., Zacharias doesn’t consider them finished. To his disappointment, the client insisted that the spot end with a shot of the eTour home page. "I would like to do my own edit of the spot, which wouldn’t end with that shot," he says. "In some ways, I’m like the typical European director who wants to be involved in everything—music, sound, editing. The American system is slightly different in that the director can walk away after the shoot. That’s not possible for me. If somebody takes the film away before I am finished, I don’t see how I can promise that I’ll make a good ad. I am interested in being a filmmaker, and I do it for fun. The fun, for me, is in working to the end."
Family Affair
Zacharias’ interest in film and photography developed early: his grandmother produced documentaries, his mother is an editor, and his father is a composer who often works on Czech film and TV projects. Yet when he was born, Zacharias hardly seemed destined to work in commercials. Until ’92, Czechoslovakia was a communist nation with a state-run film and TV industry, and broadcast rules that prevented most forms of advertising. "I didn’t have access to many films growing up, but I went on a lot of shoots with my mother and grandmother and I enjoyed it very much," he says.
At 19, he enrolled at FAMU, hoping to become a cinematographer and documentary filmmaker. As he progressed through a five-year course of study, communism fell, and the country was divided in two. International ad agencies moved in, and local production companies like Stillking, where Zacharias got his start, sprang up as Prague became a popular place to shoot commercials, music videos and features.
Though Zacharias is known for his striking visual images—like a Volvo’s headlights emerging from an eerie winter mist in "Fog," via BBDO London—he prefers to also be recognized as a director who works well with actors. "I first learned how to direct by working on documentaries. You don’t work with actors, but in a way that’s better," he says. "You learn to work with real people. You have to keep your eyes open, since nothing is planned. In commercials, you want to be prepared for the accidental thing, because that can turn out in the end to be the best thing." He has a great deal of sympathy for performers, having had the disheartening experience of portraying a "shy prince" in an art film parody at school. "I learned how important it is for the director to talk to actors, because my director didn’t talk to me, and I didn’t know what to do. I’m happy that I don’t ever have to act again."
One of his most acclaimed spots is "Insights" for Whiskas, via Saatchi & Saatchi, London. The spot, an ironic look at the unpredictable nature of housecats, won Zacharias a Silver Lion at the ’97 Cannes International Advertising Festival. In it, subtitles offer stereotypes about felines such as "Cats are predators" and "Cats don’t like dogs," while the visuals tell the opposite story. There’s a quick shot of a tabby fleeing in terror at the sight of a mouse, and a look at a kitten happily crouched between the legs of a large dog, that protects it from the rain.
"Insights" required the expertise of three animal trainers, who recruited dozens of European felines. "Honestly, cats are not my favorite animals, but every day we shot, we finished at three o’clock because the cats somehow did what we wanted. I don’t know how or why." One shot still makes him laugh: "The dog in the rain was so old that he didn’t even seem to notice the cat underneath him, and the cat was so young that he didn’t really recognize the dog."
His more recent work showcases the great outdoors. "Born Free," via WCRS London, features the new model of Land Rover being released into its natural habitat—the African veldt. "Dad’s Car," for United Airlines via Fallon McElligott, Minneapolis, is a slice of retro Americana, with a boy enduring a long family drive along a desert highway. "Actually," says Zacharias, "the little boy was British, coached to do an American accent, and the highway was in South Africa."
Zacharias hopes to direct a feature film or documentary in the next few years. This spring, he’ll get his first feature film credit as a second unit director on Ordinary Decent Criminals. On the set in Ireland, Zacharias directed action sequences and worked with Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey. And to the young director’s delight, nobody asked him to get coffee.c
