This spec spot centers on a couple in a moving car–and in love. The guy is behind the wheel and his gal is the front seat passenger. He touches her hand and kisses it as a playful flirtation begins. She reaches into a picnic basket perched on the backseat and pulls out an orange.
She peels the orange and holds a segment tantalizingly close to her boyfriend’s mouth, only to pull the citrus away from him as he’s about to bite it. This oral tease repeats itself until she finally chomps down on the orange, at which point the story takes an unexpected, dangerous yet humorous turn.
Her bite of the orange releases a spurt of juice which hits the guy in the eyes, blinding him to the point where he loses control of the car. The vehicle swerves across traffic onto the side of the road, narrowly missing being hit by an oncoming big rig truck.
The camera stays on the scared couple as a campy voiceover interjects, matched by accompanying supers that read, “Florida Oranges. Dangerously Juicy.”
Titled “Sunday Drive,” this commercial was directed, shot and co-written by Tom Camarda as part of his Group101Spots spec work regimen. The original intent was to make a car commercial, but Camarda could not find the script he wanted from the Group101 database. So he came up with his own script, co-authored with Jeff Nicosia, a mainstay creative contributor to Group101.
The car commercial concept called for the driver to lose control of the vehicle due to an errant fly which lands on his cheek. The passenger rolls up a magazine and smacks the driver in an attempt to swat the fly, leading the car to careen across traffic to the road’s shoulder. At this point, we would hear about the intelligent all-wheel drive capability of the car, likely an Infiniti model.
But for Camarda, the concept didn’t quite fly–no pun intended. Still the director had made all the arrangements for the shoot (including a scheduled road closure in Lancaster, Calif.), called in favors, and was under Group101 deadline pressure. Fortunately, inspiration hit him while he was walking his dog. He came up with the idea of a misdirect making the star product Florida Oranges instead of the car. A squirt from a juicy orange would be the cause for swerving into oncoming traffic.
Upon conjuring up the new twist, Camarda called Nicosia. “After telling him the idea, there was a long pause,” recalled the director. ” ‘Dangerously Juicy….yeah, I like that.’ Jeff said I had ‘plussed the board.’ That was all the confirmation I needed.”
Donna Ellis produced for the spot for director/DP Camarda. Editor was Tommy Park of Cut+Run, Santa Monica. Park also served as sound designer. Colorist was Marshall Plante at The Syndicate, Santa Monica. Audio post mixer was Jason Sikora of Sikora Productions, Santa Monica. Principal actors were Victoria Ullman and Ryan Wesley.
Craig Henighan Sounds Off On “Deadpool & Wolverine”
Hollywood lore has it that character actor Edmund Gwenn--while on his deathbed--quipped, “Dying is easy, comedy is hard.”
The second part of that darkly witty utterance remains all too true today as Craig Henighan--a Best Achievement in Sound Mixing Oscar nominee in 2019 for Roma--can attest in that he had to grapple with the sonic of being comic for this year’s box office hit, Deadpool & Wolverine (20th Century Studios/Marvel Studios).
The degree of inherent difficulty was ramped up even further because Deadpool & Wolverine had to seamlessly bring together high action-adventure exploits with moments and dialogue that tickled the funny bone. There’s a mesh of humorous banter--a staple of the franchise--along with major spectacle replete with explosions, fights, an impactful score and off-the-wall musical numbers.
Henighan explained that among the prime challenges for him from a sound perspective was having to make sure every joke landed within the construct of a superhero film. The tendency for a tentpole movie of this variety, he noted, is to gravitate towards big, loud audio spanning music, dialogue and sound effects. But the unique comedic element of Deadpool & Wolverine necessitated that re-recording mixer and supervising sound editor Henighan strike a delicate balance. “You need to get out of the way for the comedy,” he related. The jokes in a superhero film become “a real dance” as Henighan had to establish a rhythm that did justice to both the comedy and the action as the narrative moves back and forth between them--and sometimes the funny and the high energy, high decibel superhero dynamic unfold simultaneously in a scene or sequence. The “sonic fabric” has to... Read More