Buckley
was three spots for the Super Bowl. And the day before we were supposed to start [pre-production], they killed it," he remembers. "The [agency creatives] said, ‘The client freaked out at the last minute because they thought it was too negative, but we have this other thing.’ And they faxed us a page with a bunch of those lines from the kids. So that was the spot. We had no idea what the feel was supposed to be. … But from that one page, we began to build the spot."
The building process was fast. "We had to shoot it in two weeks," explains Buckley, "and it was around Christmastime. I started thinking, ‘Okay. How am I going to make this a Super Bowl spot?’" In order to set the commercial apart from "the million other talking-head" ads, Buckley chose to film it in black and white. "We stayed on the same lenses; I wouldn’t go wider," he adds. "If I went wide, I wouldn’t allow the subject to get close to the lens, so it wouldn’t get goofy. No extras, either. I always work with extras, but I wiped that out [this time]. I wanted all the scenes to be like postcards."
He opted to shoot and cast the spot in New Orleans, Minnesota and New York. "We shot twenty-seven kids in total, and I think eight made the cut," he says. As is the case with many of his projects, none of the children were professional actors. "To me, one of the great things about this business is giving people a chance, be it Anna Nicole Smith or the kid down in Louisiana who, when I asked him what he wanted for Christmas, said, ‘a bed.’ You can find interesting people who aren’t necessarily spoiled or obnoxious. They can give to you, and hopefully you can help their lives change a bit."
Both "Friends" and "Broker" featured lead actors who are not professionals. The old man shown egging a car in "Friends" was "homeless a few months before" the shoot, Buckley says. And the sad-eyed, ’70s throwback who plods through a miserable day in "Broker" "really is that character [physically]." (The "Broker" star’s non-actor father, who accompanied him to the shoot, was tapped by Buckley to play the older man in E*trade’s Super Bowl ad, "Monkey," also for GS&P.)
Buckley recently completed work on a series of Miller Lite commercials via Ogilvy & Mather, New York. Still, he appreciates the creative freedom that the dot-com category can provide. "They don’t have to worry about what the interior of their place looks like—it doesn’t matter," he explains. "The entire perception of them is in their site and in their advertising. It makes them more willing to take chances."c
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 —... Read More