Many of Ralf Schmerberg’s commercials have a gritty, cinema verite feel. Their messages are conveyed not by scripted dialogue but by the visuals, which are supplemented by on-screen text and voiceover narration. But if the 35-year-old, German-born director is concerned about being hemmed in by a certain kind of style, he isn’t complaining.
"People like my kind of poetic, documentary style," says Schmerberg, who is represented by bicoastal/international @radical.media. "They like to send me out in to the world and pick up something and make it beautiful. I love storytelling. Once I know the story, I try to make it as real as I can-real and truthful and normal, like everyone would see it in real life. I don’t try to get too artsy."
In "Body," his most recent work for Nike out of Wieden + Kennedy (W + K), Portland, Ore., the story belongs to cyclist Lance Armstrong, who survived a bout with cancer and won the ’99 Tour de France-only to be met with accusations that he’d used performance-enhancing drugs. Schmerberg and the W + K creative team went to Armstrong’s hometown of Austin, Texas, to shoot the spot, and followed the athlete through his regimen of physical training and required drug testing. While "Body" may seem completely spontaneous, Schmerberg reveals that the ad-unlike much of his work-was carefully storyboarded.
Schmerberg’s visual style seems to be a good fit for Nike’s image-making campaigns. He made his first U.S. spot, "Los Toros" via W + K, in ’98. In it, linemen for the Denver Broncos face off against raging bulls in the streets of Pamplona, Spain. Four more Nike spots, all via W + K, have followed: "Blind Men," featuring two sightless brothers on shooting hoops; "Running," in which runners race a London underground train from stop to stop; "Psalm 23," which features Chamique Holdsclaw of the Washington Mystics reading from the Old Testament while preparing for a game; and "Horse Intro," which shows a bizarre game of "horse," set to "Dueling Banjos." (Horse is the game whereby players shoot baskets from different distances on the court. If a player misses a shot, he or she is assigned a letter from the word "horse"-miss too many shots, and the player loses once the word is spelled out.)
Cleaning Up
One of Schmerberg’s favorite projects was a PSA he did for the city of Paris via BL/LB Leo Burnett/ Paris. "The Blind Man" tracks an elderly, sightless man navigating the streets of Paris with the help of his white-tipped cane. When he reaches his house, the camera reveals that he’s unwittingly speared a number of dog droppings. The message: Parisian dog owners should clean up after their pets.
"You don’t expect the city of Paris to call you to do a project to take care of their dog shit problem," says Schmerberg. "This project was funny, very unusual, because most of the things you get are products. Unusual products or situations for advertisements are very interesting to do. In advertising, I like to do something that changes the accepted way of doing it."
Schmerberg’s U.S. work for Nike came after a chance meeting with Jon Kamen, @radical’s proprietor/executive producer. After helming a successful European campaign for Nike through W + K’s Amster dam office, Schmerberg ran into Kamen in late ’97 in London. "We found out he was an agent and I was a director," says Schmerberg. "We met the next day to look at each other’s work, and on that same day I signed with @radical.media."
That kind of decisionmaking on the fly has been typical of Schmerberg’s career. When the director left his native Stuttgart, Germany, to spend several years traveling, he packed a camera. "After one day of doing photos, I said, ‘I’m a photographer.’ I knew it. People thought I was crazy, but I meant it. I didn’t go to school or assist another photographer. I really did it on my own. I wanted to shoot pictures, not learn how to shoot pictures."
That led to a career shooting print ads. Then in ’94, Schmerberg had an opportunity to direct a commercial. That bug bit, and led to a successful career as a director of German commercials and music videos. Schmerberg continues to shoot stills for personal enjoyment, and does second-unit photography on film projects. "I like to work with DPs, but I always like to shoot a little bit with the second camera," he says.
In ’95, Schmerberg formed Trigger Happy Productions, Stuttgart, with partner/executive producer Sigrid Maier-Schenung. Two years later, the company moved to Berlin. "Berlin is the best town to be in," he says. "It’s an incredible place at the moment. Everything is possible. It has unbelievable creativity, with nightlife, parties, filmmaking, art."
Schmerberg, who recently directed MasterCard’s "Spirit Of Youth," for McCann-Erickson, New York, says that lately, boards having been coming in from the U.S. and Europe, though he still isn’t called for many dialogue-driven spots. "Most dialogue in spots is stupid," he says. "As a foreigner working in the American or English market, if it comes to dialogue or local humor, the agencies prefer to take their home market people. … I always try to look for the creative’s idea, [and] what best fits my own personal interests in life," he says. "It makes no difference where the board comes from. In the end, you read a piece of paper and what you read is the reality of what is done on this project so far, and that’s what makes me pick it up or let it fall."
Schmerberg’s most recent project is the client-direct "The Beach," which he filmed in Rio de Janeiro for The Travel Channel. "All they wanted me to do was to get a strong impact of remembrance and feelings of people who connect with the beach," says Schmerberg. "We lived on the beach for a week and shot the daily lives of the people."
When he’s not helming spots and videos, Schmerberg directs and produces feature documentaries. In ’97, through Trigger Happy, Schmerberg made Hommage Noir, a dialogue-free, visual and musical tribute to the people of contemporary Africa. He is currently working on Poem, an experimental film based on German poetry that is being produced jointly by Trigger Happy and @radical.media. "I always want to do other things than advertisements and music videos to refresh my mind," he says. "It’s what a lot of directors do. Not every hour I spend in my life is to make money."c
