Creating engaging entertainment that isn’t intrusive–all within the confines of a scant 10 seconds in order to reach the coveted youth demographic. That was the daunting challenge facing Saatchi & Saatchi Los Angeles for its Toyota Yaris client in the context of sponsoring mobisodes of the Fox TV series Prison Break, to be seen on certain Sprint mobile phones. Talk about a “hard cell,” with “cell” being short for cellular.
Saatchi responded with 10-second messages which book-end each original content mobisode. “It all comes down to a great core idea–no matter what the medium,” relates Damian Stevens, executive VP, director of integrated production/multimedia for Saatchi. “Our creative team came up with a ‘Spy versus Spy’-type scenario pitting the Yaris hatchback against the Yaris sedan.”
There are seven :10s in all, each sort of a playful, humorous “mental hotfoot” (to borrow a George Carlin phrase). In “Hydrant,” for example, the Yaris sedan plants a fire hydrant next to a Yaris hatchback. We then see the hatchback towed away, but not before it places a dog next to the sedan. Ignoring the hydrant across the way, the canine urinates on a Yaris tire.
In “Magnet,” the feud continues. The sedan pulls out a giant magnet from beneath its hood, holding the hatchback within its drawing power. Yet just when it appears the hatchback is helpless, it comes up with a Looney Tunes-style remedy, releasing a giant anvil from beneath its hood which the magnet sucks into the sedan with devastating impact.
Indeed every action has a reaction. In “Shake,” the hatchback goes slapstick and throws a pie at the sedan, making a direct hit. However, when the sedan shakes vigorously–like a wet dog trying to dry itself–the pie crust and filling winds up covering the windshield of the hatchback, which activates its wipers.
“We have to be in the space where our young target consumers are–that’s the profile of the Yaris, bringing more youth into the Toyota brand,” says Stevens. Part of that space is on mobile phones–where young adults text message, and sample mobisodes; Prison Break–in which Yaris automobiles appear–is a series that has registered with the youth demographic on Fox.
The 10-second battles between Yaris models play out against simple white backgrounds, offering a clean yet stylish computer-animated look. The Saatchi creative team on the project consisted of executive creative director Harvey Marco, creative director Steve Levit, creative director/art director Greg Wells, copywriter Eric Walker, Stevens, and producer Richard Bendetti. Production/editorial house was The Famous Group, Los Angeles, with Greg Harvey serving as director and Chad Feeback as animation producer.
Further underscoring how the advertising landscape is evolving are two asides. For one, Stevens, formerly director of broadcast production, has assumed the aforementioned, newly created title of executive VP, director of integrated production/multimedia. Secondly, the :10s were presented to the client as clips on cell phones. “They thought that was so cool,” smiles Stevens. “We didn’t screen a DVD in a conference room. We just handed them specially equipped mobile phones and played the content for them.”
Upon Stevens’ advice, the client also opted for HD finishing of the :10s. “On the surface, you would think since this content would live on phones, the resolution wouldn’t have to be that great,” relates Stevens. “But we knew we wanted to re-purpose this content down the road–for the Web, possibly for on air or in cinema. So we needed a high-quality finish to accommodate those applications. That’s why I’ve supported finishing in HD.”
TOKYOPLASTIC Saatchi’s media department brought the Prison Break mobisode opportunity to the agency’s creative team. Thus this became a separate project under the already initiated creative launch, for which Saatchi sought out tokyoplastic, a London-based digital media boutique featuring the directing team tokyoplastic, who are on the roster of London animation house Picasso Pictures.
From this collaboration came distinctive broadcast commercials “Piggy,” “Spider” and “Mothership,” an Internet teaser ad, “MP3” (on Yahoo, MSN, and the client’s home page), and a soon-to-be-unveiled :60 cinema spot, “Chase.” The mobisode :10s were patterned after the look, feel and sensibilities of this original campaign, which was inspired in part by tokyoplastic’s much lauded Web site featuring slick graphics, and quick-witted animation with a sometimes dark undercurrent. This mix proved ideal for bringing mischievously lovable character to the Yaris.
The youth-appeal campaign is in some respects embodied in “MP3” in which an MP3 player with earphones is quietly pulsating before our eyes. Suddenly a Yaris enters the picture and from underneath its hood, a tentacle-like apparatus emerges and snatches the MP3 for itself. The car then shimmies to the booming beat; you can feel the energy. A message appears which simply informs us that the Yaris is “MP3 compatible.”
As another example, a fun, somewhat rebellious attitude is also reflected in “Spider,” named after a rather menacing looking creature made out of fuel pump spigots. However, when a Yaris enters the picture, it dwarfs the spider-like machine which almost withers before the automobile. The car runs over the spider, smashing it to bits, leaving a pool of gasoline, which is sucked into the Yaris’ gas tank. An accompanying message reads, “40 mpg rated.”
Stevens says that working with the tokyoplastic directing team was “a totally collaborative process. We worked through our vision with them, we wrote scripts and concepted with them over the phone. And we wound up producing several of the scripts, not just one, spanning TV, viral and cinema.”
The collaboration also was key in maintaining a delicate balance–making the CG Yaris automobiles playful but not toy-like, believable yet not stark photo-real. “We needed to retain that playfulness,” affirms Stevens.
All elements of these commercials were created using 3D Studio Max technology, After FX, Premier and Brazil rendering software, with each car painstakingly modeled by adapting computer-aided design data supplied by the client.
The decision was also made to finish this campaign in HD. “You need the highest possible resolution for the greatest flexibility across different platforms,” explains Stevens. (“MP3” debuted on the Internet but is also seeing broadcast air time.)
The Saatchi ensemble on this package included executive creative director Marco, creative director Levit, art directors/copywriters Conan Wang and Juan Bobillo, Stevens, senior producer Jennifer Vogtmann and account exec Janine Kanamori.
Tokyoplastic directed via Picasso Pictures. Jane Bolton was executive producer, with James Boty serving as technical director and Chris Hill as animation director. Tokyoplastic and 740 Sound, Santa Monica, handled sound design.
RE: JOYCE While many agency producers have had to hypothetically contemplate how they will adapt in order to facilitate projects that go beyond traditional commercialmaking, now a growing number of ad shop artisans are gaining first-hand experience in assorted, emerging forms of content.
Consider the case of producer Michael Joyce of Cramer-Krasselt, Milwaukee, who just wrapped two ambitious branded entertainment films for watercraft company Sea-Doo. A third film in the series is being produced by his Cramer-Krasselt colleague Dinah Goris. Venice, Calif.-based Backyard Productions produced all three films: Rusty Dogs and Hijacked, which Joyce worked on; and Harbour Towne, with Goris attached as agency producer.
Rusty Dogs is featured in this week’s SHOOT Brandstand section. Directed by Backyard’s Jeffrey Karoff, Rusty Dogs is a nearly seven-and-half-minute, tongue-in-cheek action/adventure that recently debuted on a special Sea-Doo Web site (www.seadoofilms.com).
Joyce relates that he had to make various adjustments as he diversified into branded entertainment films. Several were of a nuts-and-bolts business variety, such as negotiating with actors and their agents. Rusty Dogs features a cast that includes Eric Roberts, Chad Allen, Philip Anthony-Rodriguez and Jaimz Wolvett. “Those negotiations were different from what we typically deal with in commercials,” says Joyce. “While some of the actors did additional behind-the-scenes product demo-type pieces for us, Eric [Roberts] didn’t–He didn’t want to be in a sales-type piece–So we had to be careful in the wording [of contracts] and the nature of what we did.”
Also dealing with overages was decidedly different from the spotmaking norm. The up-front understanding was that the three films had to come in for a certain amount of money, according to Joyce. When the first film cost a little more than we initially planned, quite simply the money came out of the other two films. “It’s not like we’re looking at an AICP bid form–There was a trust and mutual understanding between Backyard and us,” says Joyce, noting that the groundwork for the series of films was laid by Cramer-Krasselt executive director Mike Bednar and Backyard executive producer Blair Stribley.
“This wasn’t a case where we bid out the project,” notes Joyce. “The series sprung out of the relationship with Backyard. We knew going in that we would be working with three different directors from the company.” (Hijacked was directed by Michael Chaves; Harbour Towne is being helmed by Tim Abshire.)
Logistics also required Joyce to adapt. We shot the first film [Rusty Dogs] over four days–some days we had three units going at the same time. The scope of the project in this and other respects was much greater,” he observes. Rusty Dogs was shot in Los Angeles, whereas Hijacked was lensed in Cape Town.
Indeed the scope of the shorts is in some respects cut more from independent filmmaking cloth than it is the ad arena. The mindset in approaching the project is different, says director Karoff, who co-write Rusty Dogs with DP Anghel Decca. “Our producer Danielle Schilling-Lovett did the cult classic House of 1,000 Corpses,” says Karoff. “We tapped into her indie resources, including Pemrick/Fronk who did Corpses’ casting. Even though this gets produced in an advertising context, we were thinking of this all along in the indie, low budget vein, not the commercial mold.”
Other logistics included teaser/trailers for each film; the one for Rusty Dogs took the form of a TV commercial which was designed to help drive traffic to the special Sea-Doo Web site. The trailers for the other two films are being shown on the site itself. Plus there were the accompanying videos on the site addressing technology, namely info about and overviews of Sea-Doo water crafts.
For Joyce, additional logistics took hold immediately upon the completion of each film. “Whereas when you wrap a commercial, you can move on, that wasn’t the case for the branded entertainment shorts,” he recalls. “We then had to work with [Backyard sister shop] Transistor in digitizing the films and getting the Web site designed and done properly. There were days of us going back and forth to make sure the Web site looked like it was supposed to.”
Perhaps the biggest creative adjustment, relates Joyce, involves the inherent temptation that when a director does a film, even a short film, there’s a stronger sense of authorship than on a commercial. “Clearly we want to produce the best entertainment possible,” says Joyce. “Yet there are also aspects of commerce that need to be remembered–and sometimes you’ll have to remind the director of that fact. We all want a great film, but we need to keep client goals in mind as well.”
Joyce has been at Cramer-Krasselt for four years, the last three as a producer. He sees opportunities opening up for agency producers that go well beyond traditional commercialmaking. For example, he is currently in season two of The Ultimate Playground, a cable TV series for Sea-Doo parent company BRP that ran on Outdoor Life Network in its first season. The second season is slated for ESPN 2. The show goes all over the world, covering for example fly fishing in Cabo (with BRP ATVs shown), or surfing in Hawaii with Sea-Doo jet skis.
“Opportunities of all kinds are emerging for clients–and the agency and production communities,” says Joyce. “It’s an exciting time.”
