It started two years ago with what writer, director and star Charles Stone calls "the quintessential couch potato short." True was an amusingly honest two-minute exercise in friendship, communication and everyday life.
The abridged version of what happened: After True stole the show at the annual Music Video Production Association (MVPA) Director’s Cuts Film Festival in Los Angeles in ’98, a copy of the film made its way into the hands of DDB Chicago copywriter Vinny Warren. According to DDB senior VP/group creative director Don Pogany, two ads from a five-spot Budweiser campaign, based on that short film and directed by Stone, will more than likely air during the Super Bowl this Sunday (1/30).
The campaign, which broke December 27, 1999, is "the bar topic of the moment" according to Newsweek, which also reported that director Spike Lee of Forty Acres and a Mule Filmworks, Brooklyn, N.Y., called Anheuser-Busch just to say how much he loves the ads. Jim Schumacker, VP/creative development at Anheuser-Busch, said the brewery has received numerous calls and letters from the public. Moreover, he said, "We’ve seen in focus groups that the campaign has a very high entertainment value. It’s relevant to our target audience of twenty-one to thirty-five-year-olds. It could become a catch phrase for Budweiser. And I think people relate to the bond the friends [in the spot] have."
Stone—who is represented for commercials by New York-based C&C Films, and its newly launched division called Storm, which focuses on edgier spotwork—said that he was recently summoned for a meeting by Dustin Hoffman. The Oscar-winning actor told the director how impressed he was with the campaign’s realism. Said Stone: "It was a real honor. To have him respond in such a visceral way, I knew as a filmmaker I’d done the right thing, because it’s all about reaching out and affecting people."
True has yielded other benefits as well. For several months after the MVPA Festival, Stone’s phone rang off the hook. After dozens of meetings with agents and studio heads, the 10-year veteran of the clip industry signed with the Beverly Hills-based United Tal-
ent Agency. He is currently polishing the script for a feature he’s set to direct in association with Dimension Films, a division of Miramax. A coming-of-age drama set in Brooklyn, N.Y., in the mid-’80s, the film is currently known as The Untitled Harlem Project.
"People across the board have really embraced True, because ultimately the idea is a universal one—that concept of being on the phone while watching television," Stone explained. "You’re not really talking to the person you’re on the phone with. It’s not about, ‘So what did you really do today?’ You’re not really answering the questions. The hidden magic of that situation is that it’s like you’re watching TV with your friend. And that’s all that matters."
Like the film on which it is based, the Budweiser campaign was shot on location in New York and follows a group of guys (the original cast of Stone and his friends) hanging out and talking on the phone. Shot by DP John Perez, the first ad, "Whassup!?" opens on a close-up of Stone, who is reclining on a couch in a room lit by the TV set, holding a bottle of Budweiser.
The phone rings and Stone answers, "Hello?" Cut to Stone’s friend, "B," who is sitting in a chair in front of his television, also holding a bottle of Bud. B asks, "Dude, what’s up?" Cut to Stone: "Nothin’. Watchin’ the game, havin’ a Bud. What’s up with you?" B responds, "Watchin’ the game, havin’ a Bud." Says Stone: "True, true." Soon after, Stone’s roommate enters the apartment. "Whaasssuuup!" he says in greeting. Stone responds accordingly. B asks who’s there, and Stone tells his roommate to pick up the phone in the kitchen. More "Whaasssuuups!" are exchanged among the trio. Next B’s roommate "Dukie," who is sitting in front of a computer in another room, is summoned to the phone. More "Whaasssuuups!" You get the drift. A fifth friend then comes to Stone’s door and through the buzzer he shouts "Whaasssuuup!"—which inspires another round.
Finally, everyone disconnects except for Stone and B. "So, what’s up B?" Stone asks. "Watchin’ the game, having a Bud," comes the response. "True, true," Stone says, as the screen fades to black and the Budweiser logo and the word "true" appears.
The remaining ads—"Girlfriend," "Call Waiting," "Pizza Guy" and "Telemarketer"—are variations on the original. "Girlfriend," which is likely to be one of the Super Bowl ads according to Pogany, finds Dukie on a date. He and his girlfriend are watching a figure-skating program at home, when his friends call. Dukie attempts to keep the two interactions separate, not wanting his friends to know he’s watching figure-skating, and not wanting his girlfriend to hear him squawk "Whaasssuuup!"
Meanwhile, "Call Waiting" has Stone and B at their respective homes, when a call beeps in from their friends, who are at a bar. "Pizza Guy" finds a delivery boy arriving at the apartment, where he gets the "Whaasssuuup!" salute, but isn’t quite sure what to make of it. And "Telemarketer" has Stone impersonating a telemarketer when Dukie answers the phone. One guess as to what breaks Stone’s cover:
"Whaasssuuup!"
What impressed Stone most is that in creating the ads, both the agency and the client embraced so much of what made True true. He admits to having had reservations about selling the concept of the film for a commercial, but after meeting with DDB, he felt the proposed campaign "totally vibed" with the film’s message. "They wanted to keep the integrity of the piece," he said, adding that Budweiser and DDB stood by the term "true," which Stone said is African-American slang which "represents affirmation," such as "right on."
"I really applaud Budweiser for the fact that we didn’t have to hammer home the product," Stone continued. "It’s more about this moment in time, and Budweiser just happens to be a part of that. That’s very courageous."
While the original plan for the ads was to cast a multicultural group of actors in order to reflect as broad a demographic as possible, Stone said that "after three days of casting … they thought, ‘Why don’t we stick with the original cast?’ because they could see the camaraderie. And Budweiser supported that." Pogany affirmed: "We looked into casting it differently, but [later] we felt the strength with the buddies was part of the magic, and we stuck with it."
Before True
Stone was raised in Philadelphia and graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, R.I., in ’88. While there, he majored in animation and was also active in theater and stand-up comedy, but after school he decided to pursue a live-action directing career. In the fall of that year, he joined the ranks of Woo Art International, New York, where he began directing music videos. His credits include clips for bands such as A Tribe Called Quest, The Roots, Living Colour and Public Enemy.
In the mid-’90s, Stone moved over to Totem Pictures, New York, where he stayed for about a year before meeting Wendi Giles, with whom he continues to work today. At that time, Giles was working as a music video rep and producer out of bicoastal Original Film, so Stone began running his clips through that company. Giles is now a producer/music video rep at Los Angeles-based Morton Jankel Zander. Stone, while he continues to partner with Giles on clips, signed for commercial representation with C&C in ’97.
Since he "started to dabble in commercials," the director has helmed a Coca-Cola ad for DMB&B, St. Louis, and a pair of spots for the Colorado Lottery out of Denver agency Karsh & Hagan Communications. While the Budweiser campaign is the most prestigious endeavor he’s been involved with to date, Stone said the irony is that the production itself was "very small"—a simple, slice-of-life project, not unlike True.
In a way, it’s fitting that both of these minimalist productions should figure so prominently in Stone’s career. Asked to characterize his work, the director said his creativity is driven by "the absurdity that comes from real life." As it happens, True was shot in a single day at a friend’s house in Harlem, on Hi-8, with a borrowed camera. And yet Stone says it has "catapulted me into other worlds." Talk about the strange reality that everyday life is, you know? I mean, dude. Whaasssuuup!
