A new batch of clever :30s out of TBWA/ Chiat/Day, Los Angeles, for Kinkos is jazzing up the old copy shop/ office supply genre. One of the people responsible for that jazzing is producer Sybil Hadfield.
The Kinkos spots (the first out of the agency since they won the account last year) use office supplies such as overhead projectors, charts and graphs in creative ways. In Chickens, directed by bicoastal Athertons David Denneen, a farmer, wearing a baseball cap and sport coat, steps toward the camera and says, I hate to tell you, but were looking at a negative sales trend, coupled with high overhead. The camera pulls back and we see that hes addressing a barn full of chickens. Let me put it this way, the farmer says, pointing to a poster-size bar graph behind him. Were just not meeting our goals. Tell you what. Give me more eggs, Ill give you more corn. Otherwise, he says, pointing to a second chart that features a picture of fried chicken in a bucket, we may have to A diversify. The chickens start clucking nervously.
The spots are slick and narrative-drivenaodd work, perhaps, for Hadfield, who has a reputation for producing subtle, poetic car spots. Shes worked on the Acura account at the former Ketchum Advertising, Los Angeles, the Infiniti launch at Hill, Holliday, Connors, Cosmopulos now defunct Los Angeles office (the agency is still headquartered in Boston) and most recently, on the new Nissan Altima launch at TBWA/Chiat/ Day. The Kinkos spots were really fun for me, because they were really different. I asked specifically to be put on the Kinkos pitch, she says. Id wanted to get off car work, not because I was finding it limiting, but because I wanted to freshen up a bit. Now, having had the experience with Kinkos, Im looking forward to going back to work on the Infiniti campaign. Maybe itll give me a fresher perspective on the car stuff.
Hadfield is from Boston. She was raised by a radical feminist mother. I was in a building at Harvard when my mother and her sisterhood friends took it over, she recalls. Her father is a gay activist and works for a conservative Boston law firm. Im a blending of all those things, she says.
She attended Middlebury College in Vermont, majoring in French and Theater Arts with a concentration in Swedish. We bid Traktor [the directing team out of bicoastal/international Partizan Midi Minuit], she says, so the Swedish comes in handy. During our meetings, I could understand all of their aside conversations. They could never hide anything, she says, laughing.
Hadfield had no intention of going into production. She was an aspiring actress. She appeared in 1987 on the TV series Unsolved Mysteries in a reenactment, playing Katherine Ann Power, a woman who killed a police officer and went on the lam for 25 years. Being in front of the camera was so boring, she says. It wasnt like theater. And I decided, if I couldnt be Meryl Streep, I didnt want any part of it.
Hadfield met Amy Wagner, then a producer at Hill, Holliday, Connors, Cosmopulos in Boston, when Wagner was on her way to head production in the agencys L.A. office. She needed an assistant producer to work with her. Hadfield volunteered. I flew out to L.A. on a cheap ticket, recalls Hadfield, bringing a down comforter, a suitcase, and a pillow, and I stayed with my brothers roommate from college. I became Amys assistant.
After her initial stint in L.A., Hadfield landed back in Boston, taking a producer position at Arnold Communications, where she worked on the Titleist, NYNEX, and Volkswagen accounts. After Arnold, she went back to L.A., freelanced for a year and had a baby, before taking the job at TBWA/Chiat/Day.
Practical Creativity
Hadfield believes that producers can contribute creatively to a production. Its my job to make sure that everything gets discussed and nailed down, she says. Theres an element of practicality that I bring, to say, Awe have to really think about this, or, AIm nervous about this; this looks great on paper, butA That element of practical creativity, I feel, is one of my strengths.
Hadfield needed her practical creativity on the set of Chickens. When she arrived, she realized she didnt have enough chickens. We had originally budgeted $5,000 for chickens, which seemed like plenty. But out there, we realized how many we would need to fill the barn. We ended up needing over a thousand chickens at $12 a head, so it was kind of like, AOh!
Even after the shoot, Hadfield realized she still didnt have enough chickens. We had to duplicate, cut and paste chickens in the Flame, she says. And we had to repair chicken beaks. Apparently, [farmers] cut their beaks off, so they dont peck each other to death, so we had to composite in beaks. Basically performing plastic surgery on the chickens.
With tools like Henry and Flame, Hadfield says producers have to think about postproduction now. These days, you have to be aware of things that can come up in post. I hadnt budgeted for repairing chicken beaks. I spent an additional $7,000 on additional chickens. I wasnt expecting to have to composite chickens as well. You have to think about all this stuff now.
Another strength that Hadfield possesses is that she has a very detailed sense of production. Why? She married a production designer. So I really know production, she says. My husband and I joke, because when we were married, its like the ultimate taboo, the marrying of production and agency. Some agencies really play on that animosity, like, Ayoure the crew; were the agency. Knowing production, I can bring a sensibility to a shoot, a belief that we are all working together, that its not about me versus you.q
