Show" and "Vandal," out of Fallon, London, pokes fun at the fact that no one seems to take Skoda’s Fabia brand too seriously. "Factory Tour" finds a group of businessmen touring a car factory. The plant is modern and efficient, and the visitors are impressed. At the end of the tour, the guide shows them the finished product. The businessmen clearly don’t recognize the Skoda Fabia for the fine piece of engineering that it is, because one of them says to the tour guide, "And I hear you also make those funny little Skoda cars." The businessman’s comment is totally unexpected. Bond notes, "I think humor is best when it surprises and when it is taken seriously." And while Bond has helmed his share of humorous fare, he isn’t necessarily looking for a script that makes him laugh. "I think it’s important that the script has something clever to do with the product," he says.
Certainly, visuals are an important element of Bond’s spot work, but they aren’t the number one priority. "When we’re all working as a team [on a spot], I always say it’s more important we get the story right first, and then the visuals should come along with the story, with what the story requires," he says. "Let’s start with what story we want to tell and what characters we want to use and what emotion we want to emphasize. I really like working like that."
He also tends to admire the work of other directors who work in the same fashion, helmers like Spike Lee, who helms ads out of his own Brooklyn, N.Y.-based shop, Forty Acres and a Mule; and fellow Swedes such as Jonas Akerlund, who helms spots in the U.S. via bicoastal HSI Productions/P.A.R., and the late Jhoan Camitz, whom he met at Mod:film. (At the time of his death, Camitz was directing out of bicoastal Satellite.)
For years, many high-profile spot directors have come out of Sweden—a fact that hasn’t gone unnoticed by Bond. "Do you remember Smoke? In the movie, Lou Reed said he’s scared of Sweden because everything is so perfect. Everything is so taken care of. He said, ‘I’m not afraid in the middle of the night in Brooklyn, but I would be scared dead in the middle of the night in Stockholm because everything is so perfect,’ " Bond recalls. "And it’s true. There is a culture of taking pride in what you’re doing and doing it really well."
Bond, who recently wrapped work on Monster.com’s "Beware of the Voices" via Saatchi & Saatchi, London, notes that when he is working on a spot, he becomes totally absorbed in the project. That makes for a better spot, of course. But, in the end, it isn’t always so easy to let go. "When you come out of it," jokes Bond, "it’s like you’re on the verge of getting divorced from a wife."µ
