Director Annabel Jankel joined harvest, Santa Monica, this summer, after leaving bicoastal/international MJZ–the company she founded almost 15 years ago with her former husband, director Rocky Morton, and executive producer David Zander. For her it was simply the right time, personally and professionally, to make the move. “It’s great,” she says, “it’s like a way to unshackle myself of the burdens that inevitably come with being a partner and founder of a company of that scale. For me at this point in time, I really want to focus on my work, my vision and the future, and it doesn’t involve the nuts and bolts of actually running a production company.”
Jankel’s work spans a broad range of genres from touching drama like “Office” for the Bell Walk for Kids, to the sweet and funny “Kiss” for Hallmark. In “Office” a meek businessman exits his office only to face bullies who emerge from the cubicles that surround him. A man blocks his path and gets in his face while another shoves him against the wall. Onlookers only laugh and the businessman is left to shed tears in solitude. “Most adults couldn’t handle what some kids go through, help protect kids from abuse,” a voiceover says. Then a super announces the Bell Walk for Kids. The ad was done via agency Cossette, Toronto, and newnewfilms, Toronto–the company that represents Jankel in Canada.
With a completely different tone, “Kiss” through Leo Burnett, Toronto, and Feel Films, London–who represents her for spots in the U.K.–follows an awkward-looking boy as he recites a sweet poem to a female classmate. Then, she kisses him on the cheek. “If you could say it like Hallmark, you wouldn’t need Hallmark,” a voiceover relates. Having found such success with his words, the boy smiles, approaches another girl, and begins to use the same lines on her as the spot ends.
Though Jankel can make you laugh with cute kids and cry for the abused, her range extends beyond that and into more shocking fare. Recently she helmed two risqué virals, “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” direct for Greenpeace through Feel Films, and Go Fast’s “Truck” through TDA Advertising and Design, Boulder, Colo.
“Truck” features a man drinking a Go Fast energy drink while walking past the driveway of a commercial building; he’s suddenly struck by a large truck, and killed. Later, in the morgue, a well-endowed woman in a low-cut scrub shirt bends over his body and pulls the sheet that was covering him away from his face. The man’s genitals spring to life and a super reads, “For more endurance.”
“It didn’t really jump out at me specifically as shocking,” says Jankel of the Go Fast spot. “I kind of loved the blackness of it,” she explains. “Of course, it’s a true black comedy in a way because with black comedy you do have to have a death, and I loved the idea that it took the extremes of the two places a human can go: from being entirely without life to full of life. I thought those were great bookends for the idea.”
The Greenpeace viral is even more scandalous. In it, a puppet portrays British Prime Minister Tony Blair as a street-corner prostitute whom President Bush, played by a live actor, picks up in his car. Once in a seedy motel room, the puppet asks the president if he will have the “usual” and then appears to perform a sexual act. Soon a stream of oil flies from Bush’s pants into Blair’s face. A voiceover sheds light on the content, “When it comes to fossil fuels, don’t let Blair be Bush’s puppet. Tell him to act on climate change now.”
“The minute I saw the script it was right up my alley,” states Jankel. “It might be partly because of my sense of humor, [but] it was partly because of my attitude to what’s going on and what Greenpeace are doing, which I am fully supportive of. I thought it was incredibly bold of them to approach this subject matter in such a radical way. I very much wanted to be a part of that and was instrumental in making it happen.”
Another project she has completed since joining harvest involves two spots for One Day’s Pay, “Same Old” and “What to Say,” through Cossette Post Communications, New York. The campaign reminds people that September 11th should be respectfully remembered each year.
Blazing A Trail
Jankel says she finds virals to be a different discipline and interesting, in part, because of their small scale. Since the work generally appears on a computer screen, it needs to be “graphic enough and communicative enough to overcome the latitude that one’s had in the past watching it on TVs.” She also enjoys the wider freedom in content with the medium. “I don’t know how long that’s going to last but we should wallow in it whilst we can,” she comments.
Though the work she chooses is varied there is one thing that pulls her into a script–the emotional quality of the project. “For me, the core of the material is how it will emotionally affect an audience,” she says. “So whether it’s humor or drama or empathy or satire, I feel as though it really has to truly scratch that itch that you might have in that particular arena. I suppose that’s why the range can be broad, because it’s not so much about the particular category of filmmaking, but more about what it brings to the audience.”
In addition to focusing on the U.S. commercial market, Jankel is developing a new feature project, Skellig, which she will direct. She describes it as a family film with unusual subject matter–like death and resurrection. Having directed features in the past–e.g. Super Mario Bros. in 1993 and D.O.A. in ’88–she is familiar with the process. (Both of her previous films were co-directed with Morton; she will helm Skellig solo.)
Though she works in different film formats, from virals to features, and speaks to varied international audiences, she seems pleased to be settling down at her new roost. “What’s really exciting is having a very dynamic dialogue with my fellow filmmakers at harvest,” she relates. “I love that–it’s a very creative environment and I love the feedback and the communication, that’s something which I’m really thriving on.”