In the wake of his epic Nintendo cinema spot, "School’s Out," done via Leo Burnett USA, Chicago, director Anthony Atanasio received another big assignment: Nike’s "Breakaway," via Taxi, Toronto. Atanasio was given around a week’s prep-time to helm :30 and :90 versions of the ad, which depicts two hockey players taking their game out of the stadium, into the streets and through locations ranging from a hotel kitchen to a speeding cab.
Accustomed as he was to speedy pre-production, Atanasio faced another considerable challenge going into the project, which was produced by Industry Films, Toronto: He had never seen a hockey game before. "After I arrived in Toronto, the first thing [the Taxi creatives] did was take me to a Toronto [Maple] Leafs game," recalls the British director, who helms spots stateside through Identity, New York; in the U.K. via Amarillo Films, London; and in France out of Premiere Heure, Paris. "I was struck by the amount of contact in this sport, as well as the gracefulness, the energy and the power. Within a week, I knew who the star players were, and the rules of ice hockey."
Atanasio took the ball—or puck, as it were—and ran with it, making an action-packed, three-and-a-half minute version of "Breakaway," which he then whittled down in post. The end product boasts footage breathtaking enough to impress the most die-hard of Canadian hockey fans. "I think it was a great idea to bring in [a director] who knows nothing about the sport, but is like a sponge," Atanasio notes. "I just sort of sucked all the juice up and made this sauce."
For Atanasio, that can-do approach to spotmaking is par for the course. A highly collaborative director known for his striking—and often startling—visuals, he says he also had only one week of prep for "School’s Out"—a spot featuring more than 400 actors under the age of 12 and stunts reminiscent of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, invisible wires and all.
At the start of pre-production, Leo Burnett creatives gave Atanasio, "a five-line script, pure and straight to the point," he recalls. "Every line I read, I could visualize in my mind exactly how I wanted to do it." The idea was basic—Japanese school children leave their classroom and overcome a variety of obstacles to get to a store offering the new Super Mario Brothers game—but Atanasio’s realization of it is a cinematic fantasy. Much like the way Super Mario characters would behave, the kids leap over phone booths, fall down manholes and race though an underground tunnel system in what looks like downtown Tokyo at rush hour. One of them even gets hit by a bus, but survives, flipping and twirling through the air.
The "School’s Out" shoot was a logistical challenge, admits Atanasio. After scouting locations in Hong Kong, "we had about a week, and within that week, I had to cast all the kids, the acrobats [and decide on] all the locations," he remembers. "We also had to change as much of the signage as possible to Japanese, which of course posed some problems when you consider the amount of signs."
Some elements, such as the underground tunnels, were constructed in the studio, while the bulk was shot in existing locations. Very little was added in post. "I really enjoyed doing as much in camera as possible," relates Atanasio, who utilized several child acrobats for the ambitious stunts. "The little girl who falls down the [manhole] and runs across the top of the train was the daughter of one of the stunt coordinators."
When another child leaps from one phone booth to the next, "it was done with wirework," the director reports. "But instead of doing that in the studio, I took the wirework out into the street. So when you see the kid running against the backdrop of those buildings, nothing’s comped there. It’s all for real."
Successful as the shoot was, Atanasio has one regret. "I would’ve taken two-thousand kids instead of four hundred and fifty," he says. "I was ready to remake The Last Emperor. What you see is actually quite a controlled and constrained version."
experimentation
Throughout his career, Atanasio has let his imagination be the guide. After graduating from the Portsmouth College of Art in Portsmouth, England, with a degree in 3-D design, and earning an honors degree in media and design from the University of Portsmouth, he went on to direct short, experimental films for several years. The Persistence of Memory, a meditation on end-of-life thoughts, shot entirely with a ’50s-era Bolex camera, won the Experimental Film Award at the Melbourne International Film Festival, and was later shown on the Sci-Fi channel.
When his short film DUST was screened at the ’99 Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival in Clermont-Ferrand, France, it attracted the attention of several Paris agencies. Working out of Premiere Heure, Atanasio began directing spots for clients such as Eurovia, Dorotennis and Gaz de France.
Moving from shorts to spots was a smooth transition. "With the short films, I just had this kind of freedom to allow for abstraction without having to explain certain things," Atanasio says. "That’s still kind of coming through."
Atanasio didn’t consider working in the U.S. market until late ’02, when a DP friend suggested he contact Identity executive producer Joe Masi. "Joe was kind of impatient to see my work, and we had another commercial shoot in Mexico somewhere. I wanted to satisfy him, so I sent him a mini QuickTime of this Eurovia spot," Atanasio remembers. "It was about the size of a postage stamp."
Masi was impressed enough with the work to sign the director. Like many Europeans, Atanasio was a bit apprehensive. "I had heard so many nightmares about losing editorial control [in America]," he says.
His fears were assuaged during his first American job—Jansport’s "Do Re Mi," out of DDB Seattle. Shot in Buenos Aires, this kaleidoscopic take on young love is 45 seconds long, even though creatives had initially asked Atanasio for a :30. "I had added some extra images on the front, and just kind of stretched it out a little bit," he says. "When it ran on MTV, what the client and agency did was they bought a thirty-second slot with a fifteen-second slot attached to it. [Masi] said to me, ‘You realize this will never happen again. What’s happened here is you’ve been shown the best-case scenario.’ "
But for the enthusiastic Atanasio—who has been offered feature film projects as a result of "School’s Out" and "Breakaway"—each scenario keeps getting better. "Yesterday evening, I met with an agent from Endeavor. I’m meeting someone from CAA tomorrow, and MGM’s been phoning," says the director, who recently completed "Illusion" for Audi out of Amarillo Films via Bartle Bogle Hegarty, London. "My head is spinning."
