Director Pedro Romhanyi Of The Oil Factory Makes U.S. Spot Debut With :30.
CLIENT
The Gap.
PRODUCTION CO.
The Oil Factory, Hollywood. Pedro Romhanyi, director; Salvatore Totino, DP;
Billy Poveda, executive producer; Steve Fredriksz, producer; Jay Wakefield,
head of production. Shot on location at Raleigh Studios, Hollywood.
AGENCY
The Gap, San Francisco. Lisa Prisco, creative director; Carl Byrd, senior
art director; Leigh Donaldson, producer.
EDITORIAL
Rock Paper Scissors, Los Angeles. Adam Pertofsky, editor.
POST
A52, Los Angeles. Dan Sumpter, online editor. Company 3, Santa Monica.
Stefan Sonnenfeld, colorist.
AUDIO POST
Margarita Mix de Santa Mžnica. Jeff Levy, engineer. Admusic, Santa Monica.
Korbin Kraus, executive producer; Paul Schultz, producer; Rob McInteer,
mixer/engineer.
BY SANDRA GARCIA
The latest spot for The Gap has no be-bopping, no cowboy boots and no one
swinging around in khakis. Just a row of 24 semi-sedate beautiful people
standing around in Gap vests, quietly singing Madonna’s "Dress You Up."
Of course the actors weren’t really sedated for the shoot because that
would probably be illegal, but the stunning aspect, about The Gap’s latest
:30, "Everybody In Vests" is the incredible lack of movement. Keeping with
the same minimalist, white background approach that won The Gap acclaim
with its khakis campaign, the clothing retailer has done a 180-degree
switch from dancing to singing.
The spot opens to a male twentysomething singing the first line of "Dress
You Up"’s chorus. The camera systematically pans right, slowly moving down
a seeming endless line of indifferent-looking hipsters, all wearing Gap
vests. As each person in the front row enters the shot, he or she sings the
next line of the song, backed by a remix of the original melody. The spot
ends with the tag, "Everybody In Vests."
Get it? Everybody invests in vests? Anyway, The Gap decided that a new
product line like vests warranted a new approach and a new face to direct
it—Pedro Romhanyi from The Oil Factory, Hollywood. Represented in Europe by
London-based Outsider, Romhanyi has shot Guinness and Eurostar commercials
for the European market, as well as music videos for Blur and
Propellerheads, but "Everybody In Vests" as well as two subsequent spots in
the campaign represent his first foray into the U.S. market.
"The whole thing with the Gap work is that it’s 30 seconds of pure
entertainment and I just think it’s been some of the most exciting work to
come out," said Romhanyi, who was thrilled with the opportunity.
According to Romhanyi, The Gap creative team—consisting of creative
director Lisa Prisco, senior art director Carl Byrd, and producer Leigh
Donaldson—had a vague idea of what they wanted when they approached
Romhanyi. "They knew they wanted to do singing instead of dancing, they
didn’t want a gospel choir, or Boyz II Men harmonizing or karaoke, so that
was the beginning point of our discussion," explained Romhanyi.
The thinking behind the campaign was that everyone sings, whether they’re
good at it or not. "Singing, just like dancing, is a form of self
expression and we wanted to capture people expressing themselves in a real
way," said The Gap director of public relations Rebecca Weill. Because The
Gap’s look has a certain purity to it, they thought it best to just have a
bunch of regular people singing like they would in the shower or in their
car (only a little better). The biggest challenge then was to figure out
how to get 24 people to stand in place, sing the song live and have it be
entertaining, which turned out to be a pretty elaborate number.
Romhanyi likened the shoot to rehearsing for a stage production. Once they
got the cast together, they had to figure out which person was going to
sing which line and then work out the vocal arrangement. Silverlake,
Calif.-based record producers The Dust Brothers reproduced the music from
the original recording, to give it an updated feel. Then each actor was
wired with microphones and ear sets so they could hear the back track while
singing. "We wanted to do it live so it wouldn’t appear like they were
singing it on playback like in a music video, so it took quite a lot of
rehearsing," said Romhanyi, who knew he only had a limited amount of
opportunities to get the single shot. "We couldn’t expect unseasoned
singers to do 40 takes so we knew we had to get it right early on,"
explained Romhanyi.
Since no one in the spot was going to jump around or display any sort of
showmanship, Romhanyi used an interesting camera technique called a pan and
move with a Mega Mount, which is a simpler version of a motion control rig.
With a Mega Mount, once you’ve done a camera move, it’s locked in so the
exact motion can be recalled. The result is a constant rate of panning that
has a clockwork feel to it. "There was a lot to coordinate with all the
singers and if I had a camera operator, it would have just been one more
variable to factor in," said Romhanyi, who didn’t want to risk any camera
operator error.
Ultimately, the majority of the shoot was spent not shooting at all. After
sending 24 people to wardrobe, hair and make-up, wiring them with
microphones, rehearsing the vocal arrangements and doing the sound check,
the actual shoot amounted to just 15 takes.
***
Interface Media
Protects With CDC
CLIENT
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
PRODUCTION CO.
ThinkFilm, Washington, D.C. Joe Becker, director/executive producer; Bob
Dorsey, DP; Tom Inskeep, first assistant cameraman; Stephanie Antosca
Boright, producer; Ben Rothenberg, art director; Jonathan Zurer, production
manager; Bob Waybright, gaffer. Shot on location in Okaloosa County, Florida.
AGENCY
Ogilvy Public Relations, Washington. Steve Dahllof, creative director;
Theresa Bruce, executive producer/producer; Steven Pena, copywriter.
STOCK FOOTAGE
The Image Bank, New York. Tonya Ivchenko, contact.
POST/VISUAL EFFECTS
Interface Media Group, Washington. Carol Hilliard, art director/3-D
animator; Jeff Weingarten, compositor/Flame artist; Lisa Timchalk,
assistant; Ted Poole, colorist.
AUDIO POST
Interface Media Group. Denis Jacobsen, mixer.
MUSIC
Clean Cuts Music, Washington. Kevin Packard, composer/arranger.
SOUND DESIGN
Interface Media Group. Denis Jacobsen, sound designer.
THE SPOT
Using 3-D animated characters Carson and Noma, "Warning Label" reinforces
the need to cover one’s skin with a form of sun protection—sunblock,
sunglasses, or staying under an umbrella. As images of people on a roller
coaster, playing soccer and surfers running on the beach fill the screen,
warnings about the damage caused by the sun are displayed. Noma is properly
informed and takes all the necessary precautions, while Carson, who ignores
the admonitions, gets fried.
Spot broke May
