A veteran director returns to the driver's seat.
By Fred Cisterna
The best thing that’s happened to me over the years is that I’m no longer seen as just the car guy. Now, my range is what it used to be in Europe," says director Allan Van Rijn of bicoastal RSA USA. In ’93, Van Rijn helmed "Spikes" (through BFCS’s now defunct Los Angeles office), a much-touted Lexus spot via Team One Advertising, El Segundo, Calif. "Suddenly I was the king of sheet metal. I was cornered. They thought, ‘Ah, this is the new car guy.’ I shot car after car after car," he recalls.
"In Europe, I hardly shot any cars. I was doing storytelling, fashion, children, babies, dogs—you name it," says Van Rijn of the assignments he did prior to moving to the U.S. nine years ago. After "Spikes," Van Rijn, who signed with RSA USA in ’96, was deluged with car assignments for a few years, but the ideas kept getting weaker and weaker: "Any excuse to fill thirty seconds with metal to metal."
The director needed to recharge. One day, rather than doing yet another big-budget auto job, he took a $75,000 PSA called "No Laws" via Wieden + Kennedy, Portland, Ore., which promoted charitable giving. Van Rijn said he enjoyed the experience and that it marked the beginning of a new phase in his career. After that, he went back to directing a wide variety of ads for clients such as Visa and Nike.
New Horizon
Van Rijn decided to once again add automotive work to his spotmaking schedule a couple of years ago, "because car commercials have become much more idea-oriented," he explains. "They have become more image-driven. Look at the BMW and the Volkswagen campaigns. You can do a lot more with cars. It became very fashionable to use [directors] who hadn’t shot cars before, like fashion directors. And because I hadn’t shot cars in a long time, suddenly I was rediscovered."
A pair of recent Dodge Neon spots, "Bridge" and "Lover’s Lane" via BBDO Detroit, demonstrate that the director still has a flair for auto ads. The two :30s beautifully illustrate the pun-driven scripts in Dodge’s "Different" campaign. In "Bridge," a Dodge Neon drives onto the middle of a suspension bridge. A voiceover listing the car’s features accompanies exquisite images of the huge structure breaking apart and collapsing, as the Neon apparently weighs it down. Then comes the punchline: "and tons of other stuff."
Similarly, in "Lover’s Lane," a Neon pulls into a secluded spot on a hillside with great nighttime panoramas—the perfect place to take a paramour. The car begins to slowly sink into the ground, uprooting nearby trees. After describing the car’s attributes, the narrator deadpans,
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