Barbara Kopple, who directs commercials via bicoastal nonfiction spots, spent a lot of time laughing while helming a humor-driven Sprint campaign out of Publicis & Hal Riney, San Francisco. The ads feature school kids whose activities are timed—and billed—like cell phone minutes, and their performances delighted her. Kopple, a noted documentary filmmaker who won Oscars for Harlan County, USA (1976) and American Dream (’91), loved working on the Sprint project’s first round of ads, "Red Ball," "Soccer," "New Kid" and "Macaroni Minutes."
"Mark Sweeney was the creative director, and I’ve never had more fun with anybody," says Kopple. "We had a blast. The two of us were at the monitor watching, and sometimes we would be doubled over in laughter. Everybody was so real and hilariously funny that we could hardly contain ourselves."
"Red Ball" shows a group of elementary school kids, each holding a ball. They’re sitting outside with their teacher, who says, "What I need now is for you to tell me how many minutes you’re going to use this ball every month for the next two years."
We then see reaction shots of the totally perplexed kids. The teacher continues, "And remember, if you guess too few and go over, there’s an overage charge. And if you guess too many—well, that’s just a waste, isn’t it?" Now the kids are really baffled. Supered text asks, "How does your wireless company make you feel?" After a voiceover explains the advantages of using the Sprint PCS Fair & Flexible Plan, we hear a kid say, "If you don’t have to guess, it’s good."
Laura House, who plays the teacher in the spot (as well as the instructor in "New Kid"), is a stand-up comic and a former teacher, and her experience prepared her perfectly for the roles. "She was right on target all the time," says Kopple.
The children that appeared in the ads were real kids, not child actors. "What was cool about working with them is that they were so honest and they just went right along with things," says Kopple. "Some of what happened was not what they expected so they would look really confused and uncomfortable with certain things."
Kopple reveals one of the techniques she used to get the priceless responses she captured: "They didn’t know they were performers," she says. "They thought this was real—a real soccer class, a real art class, a real cafeteria. What I would do is put a little earpiece in the actor/teacher’s ear and say things for them to ask the students to get a reaction."
Kopple also directed the second round of the campaign, which aired during the telecast of the Summer Olympic Games from Athens. "Synch Swim," "Floor Exercise" and "Greco Roman Wrestling" feature Olympic gymnast Mary Lou Retton, and "New Swimmer" features Olympic swimmer Mark Spitz.
In addition to the Sprint work, Kopple recently completed a campaign for Target and the Tiger Woods Foundation’s "Start Something" program, out of Target Direct. The director has a number of non-spot projects on her plate as well. For starters, she’s finishing up an independent feature, Havoc, starring Anne Hathaway and Bijou Phillips. In addition, she’s wrapping up Bare Witness, a full-length documentary about women war journalists, for A&E.
Havoc marks her theatrical feature debut, but Kopple has directed episodes of such series as Oz and Homicide: Life on the Street. She has also executive produced and directed I Married…, a VH1 series that looks at the lives of people who are married to celebrities. The show has profiled the spouses of figures such as MC Hammer, Darius Rucker (front man for Hootie & the Blowfish), Carnie Wilson, and Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth, from the first season of The Apprentice.
Reel Life
Kopple notes that having a strong nonfiction background has helped in her commercial endeavors, particularly with real-people work. "Doing documentary work, you’re always looking for things that are real and for characters that can really spring out on the screen and be able to tell a story," says Kopple. "That helps a lot with doing [work like the Sprint spots].
"What’s fun about doing spots is that you have to do an entire story in thirty seconds," she continues. "In longer formats, you have some time to get to that place you need to get to. Here, if you’re not able to do it in thirty or sixty seconds, it’s not going to say it. You have to watch for all sorts of different elements as you’re doing it."
Kopple joined nonfiction in ’96, long before the reality TV phenomenon and the popularity of theatrically released documentaries. "Many years ago, [the executives at nonfiction] came to me and Peter Gilbert [who produced Hoop Dreams and also directs spots out of nonfiction] and said, ‘We really think documentary filmmakers should be making spots,’ " recalls Kopple. "It was when people weren’t thinking much about documentaries, and real people spots weren’t happening. They were the leaders of doing that, and at the beginning, it was tough. Now, nonfiction has a roster and it’s getting much easier. We were their guineas pigs and I’m glad."Z
