Tim Bieber-Directed Spot Promotes Baseball Via Offbeat Between-Innings Game
By Robert Goldrich
Director Tim Bieber of Mr. Big Film, Venice, Calif., introduces us to the new national pastime, musical chairs, in this :60 promoting the Stockton Ports, a minor league baseball farm team of the Oakland A’s.
We open on a high school coach who explains to us that the school board voted to include musical chairs in its athletic curriculum after seeing the “sport” as one of the between-innings activities during a Stockton Ports’ game. Clearly, this coach is a bit too intense when it comes to musical chairs, putting his student athletes through the grinder to extract optimum performance from them.
First, we’re on the school track where a race is about to begin. The coach fires a starting gun at which point kids sprint for their destination–which turns out to be just a few feet away, some chairs to sit in.
Next comes the video room, in which the youngsters are forced to watch the techniques of musical chair professionals. “I’m not just teaching you about musical chairs,” exhorts the maniacal coach. “I’m teaching you about life.”
What follows are a succession of practice drills designed to make the kids preeminent in the chairs game. The coach emphasizes that smarts, athleticism and proper daily hygiene are crucial. The latter entails kids taking the wax out of their ears, subject to the coach’s inspection. Indeed you have to hear when the music ends so you know when to sit down.
“The girth of a big butt has the ability to deny chair,” affirms the coach, as if he’s imparting one of life’s profound lessons. He then demonstrates the importance of attitude, sitting on a chair and challenging the kids “to take this chair from me.” All the kids back down to his intimidating manner.
Another training ritual shows the coach pulling the chair out from under an unsuspecting kid about to sit down. “Not quick enough,” says the coach.
This is followed by some temper tantrums on the part of the coach. In one scene he throws away his clipboard in utter disgust. In another, he dropkicks the clipboard, muttering he should have been a car salesman instead.
A voiceover intervenes, “Musical chairs at Stockton Ports,” accompanied by a Ports logo, phone number and Web site address for baseball game ticket info.
We then get the coach’s parting shot as he lectures to his student disciples. “I am one with the chair.” The kids then repeat in unison, “I am one with the chair.”
Bieber directed and shot “Musical Chairs” and two other similarly themed spots highlighting between-innings activities, “Headlight Bashing” and “Human Bowling,” in this campaign conceived by a creative team at Gumas Advertising, San Francisco. The offbeat tact of using quasi sports to promote baseball represents a refreshing change of comedic pace.
The Gumas creative duo consisted of creative director/copywriter Walt Whitman and art director/writer Kevin Bonner.
Kate Zimmer executive produced for Mr. Big, with Lisa DeLeo serving as producer.
Editor/audio post mixer was Victor Brown of Mad River Post, Santa Monica. Colorist was Steve Meyer of Zoic Studios, Culver City, Calif. Music composer was Mark Governor.
Principal actors were Bo Folginiti and Kevin Puett.
Juliette Welfling Takes On A Musical, A Crime Thriller, Comedy and Drama In “Emelia Pérez”
Editor Juliette Welfling has a track record of close-knit, heartfelt collaboration with writer-director Jacques Audiard, a four-time BAFTA Award nominee for Best Film not in the English Language--starting with The Beat That My Heart Skipped in 2006, then A Prophet in 2010, Rust and Bone in 2013, and Dheepan in 2017. He won for The Beat That My Heart Skipped and A Prophet.
Welfling cut three of those features: A Prophet, Rust and Bone, and Dheepan. And that shared filmography has since grown to most recently include Emelia Pérez, the Oscar buzz-worthy film from Netflix. Welfling herself is not stranger to Academy Award banter. In fact, she earned a Best Achievement in Film Editing Oscar nomination in 2008 for director Julian Schnabel’s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.
Emelia Pérez is a hybrid musical/drama/thriller which introduces us to a talented but undervalued lawyer named Rita (portrayed by Zoe Saldana) who receives a lucrative offer out of the blue from a feared drug cartel boss who’s looking to retire from his sordid business and disappear forever by becoming the woman he’s always dreamt of being (Karla SofÃa Gascón in a dual role as Manitas Del Monte/Emilia Pérez). Rita helps pull this off, orchestrating the faked death of Del Monte who leaves behind a widow (Jessi, played by Selena Gomez) and kids. While living comfortably and contently in her/their new identity, Pérez misses the children. Pérez once again enlists Rita--this time to return to family life, reuniting with the kids by pretending to be their aunt, the sister of Del Monte. Now as an aunt, Pérez winds up adopting a more altruistic bent professionally,... Read More