Gillean Proctor’s recent spicy chicken sandwich assignment for Burger King started out straightforward enough. But the glowing red background he created in-camera spun the spot into an otherworldly realm of pure invention.
"The background seemed to move separate from the product," explains Ammirati Puris Lintas’ Michele Raso, supervising art director on the :30 "Spicy Chick’n Crisp." "It was quite organic" and evoked, he adds, "a hot, spicy feeling. [Proctor] is open to exploring food in a different way. He doesn’t want to just shoot food the way other people shoot it."
"I get a lot of pleasure from making something very beautiful happen, something not often seen by the human eye in real life," says Proctor. "I can almost create a world of make-believe." The challenge, he adds, is treading "that fine line between making [tabletop] look realistic, fresh and appetizing, and making it look too contrived. It requires a certain amount of skill, I suppose, and having a very good crew; people who really understand what I’m trying to achieve."
Proctor, a Scott who’s lived in London, New York, Toronto and now Vancouver, B.C., and who recently joined N.Y.-based eo productions, has spent some 25 years perfecting his bold and graphics-conscious style. It’s made him a favorite of such clients as Nivea Hair Care, Anheuser-Busch, Nestles, Chrysler and Braun, and has its genesis in his still photography background.
"I certainly attribute my lighting and sense of aesthetic to still photography," says Proctor, who spent a year at the Royal College of Art in London in the early ’70s, and whose work also encompasses car spots and, increasingly, beauty and fashion. "Doing stills trains your eye. I think I moved fairly easily into [spots] because they won’t work unless you start out with a great image."
Recent work includes an elegant Nivea spot, "Liberation," for FCB/Wilkens Germany in Hamburg, and "I’m Sorry," a humorous French mayonnaise spot for Ammirati Puris Lintas Paris, produced in London through bicoastal/international The Artists Company (his European spot roost). The Ammirati spot features a refrigerator filled with neurotic, animatronic meat and vegetables who are wary of the jar of mayonnaise. Together, the spots show Proctor’s range as both a storyteller and a special effects supervisor, one who storyboards every move on paper and in his head.
Flexibility is a handy trait when you spend a good deal of time on the road. "I’m unusual in some regard [compared with other tabletop directors] in that I don’t do most of my work where I live," says Proctor. "I’m not working in my own studio. And, having chosen to live in Vancouver, I realize obviously that the work isn’t necessarily going to come to me-so I’m prepared to go to the work."z
