When the creatives at Young & Rubicam (Y&R), Chicago, first got the assignment to come up with an ad campaign for Orbitz.com, they visited the travel Web site’s Windy City offices to get a feel for the company. "We met a lot of characters over at Orbitz," VP/creative director/copywriter Ken Erke said about the experience. "[The Orbitz employees] were really passionate about their jobs, so we [started thinking that the new TV] campaign should be about them."
But when Y&R asked focus groups if they would like to see Orbitz employees in TV spots, they said no. "Nobody really wanted to know about the man behind the curtain," Erke surmised. Then Y&R managing partner/chief creative officer Mark Figliulo came up with an intriguing solution to their problem: marionettes.
The idea was that marionettes could be used to represent Orbitz staffers, which would be a cute hook for audiences, but the campaign would still be about the Orbitz employees. Erke, who conceptualized the three ads for the campaign with VP/creative director/art director Blake Ebel, embraced the idea right away. Director Roman Coppola of bicoastal shop The Directors Bureau was hired to execute all of them, including "Customer Care," this week’s Top Spot focus.
The commercial—which stars a cast of marionettes built and operated by The Character Shop, Simi Valley, Calif., and features sets and miniatures constructed by Fantasy II Film Effects, Burbank, Calif.—is reminiscent of Thunderbirds, a 1960s television series created by Gerry Anderson. The show featured marionettes equipped with all sorts of cool gadgets and vehicles, and focused on a top-secret organization devoted to saving the world from disaster.
In "Customer Care," Orbitz employees embark on a not-so-top-secret mission to ensure that a customer doesn’t miss a special event. As "Customer Care" opens, the Orbitz blimp is flying through stormy skies. Cut to inside the blimp, where Orbitz staff members—dubbed the "Destination: Orbitz" team—are busy at work in a customer care center. Care, a middle-aged African-American customer service representative, is sitting at her desk and speaking to her boss, Commander O, who can be seen on a video screen. Care informs Commander O that some Orbitz customers will be experiencing flight delays due to the bad weather.
Her fearless leader instructs Care to issue Orbitz traveler care alerts, and she sets about contacting customers via e-mail and phone so that "they won’t have to waste time waiting at the airport." Care also calls her clients’ friends and families, and reaches one woman who is upset to learn that her husband’s flight will be delayed because it means he’ll miss his son’s birthday party. Cut to the woman’s husband seated in a limo heading toward the airport.
"It’s going to be okay, ma’am," Care assures the lady. The Orbitz team springs into action, and we see a ladder lower into the limo through the car’s moon roof. The father begins climbing the ladder, which is attached to the Orbitz blimp.
"We’ll have him home in time to light the candles," Commander O says. "Another mission accomplished, Care."
AN APPEALING CAST
What’s particularly interesting about "Customer Care" is how relatable the marionettes are—especially Care—despite the fact that, well, they’re not human. "Even though they are puppets, they do seem more human than other forms of animation," Erke said. "That was our take at least. Somehow you can relate to them."
The faces of the marionettes featured in "Customer Care" (as well as the other two spots) are actually based on various Orbitz and Y&R employees. Care, for example, is modeled on a woman who works at Y&R. "We wanted the Care character to feel like someone who would completely take care of you, somebody who would be your mom, who was always taking that extra step to help you," Ebel explained. "[The model for Care] is a wonderful, sweet lady who is always kind of looking out for everybody."
Erke and Ebel took photos of this woman and the other "models," and sent them to The Character Shop. The photos were used by company president Rick Lazzarini, who served as puppet supervisor and puppeteer on this job, as a starting point for designing the marionettes.
Marionettes are essentially puppets manipulated by attached strings or wires. The bodies of these marionettes were made of cast plastic and had loose joints. The heads contained mechanisms inside that served as electronic substitutes for muscles, allowing for mouth and eye movements. Lazzarini noted that the limited range of movement helped to make the marionettes more old-fashioned and charming.
Designing and building the marionettes was a lengthy pro- cess that took approximately four weeks in total. Once a height for the marionettes was settled upon (they are 21-inches tall), The Character Shop sent one to Fantasy II Film Effects "so that they could fit it into their sets and chairs and so forth," Lazzarini related.
SIZE MATTERS
With the exception of the marionettes, Fantasy II Film Effects built everything seen in the commercial—from the sets to the miniature chairs to the Orbitz blimp. If you look closely at Care’s desk, you’ll see the intricate detail—including a pair of scissors, some flowers and a teddy bear. It took about three weeks to make everything. "When you have to create a world from scratch, it is always way more work than anybody realizes until they have to do it," said Gene Warren Jr., visual effects supervisor at Fantasy II Film Effects.
Despite the amount of work involved, Warren admits, "It was a fun project." That’s because Coppola and the Fantasy II Film Effects crew—which included DP Christopher Warren and model supervisor Gene Warren III—shot the spot using old school filmmaking techniques. "The blimp was shot hanging off wires on an in-house crane," Warren related. "That’s the way we would have done it forty years ago."
Of course, one of the most complicated parts of the shoot involved the operation of the marionettes. It took three puppeteers to operate Commander O—one to move his head, another his hands and yet another (using a remote control) to make his facial expressions.
It was decided that the marionettes would not be required to perform any particularly dexterous tasks, according to Lazzarini. (In fact, eagle-eyed viewers will notice that when Care is dialing a phone in "Customer Care," it isn’t the marionette’s hands we see, but real human hands.)
The marionettes could have been operated with stiff rods, which would have allowed the puppeteers to be very direct in their control, Lazzarini said, "but we wanted to have that lack of control to add to the charm and distinctiveness of these characters."
As you might imagine, the shoot was a painstaking effort. "Roman was incredibly patient," Lazzarini said. "I could see how any other director might be flipping his lid at some points." (Coppola was on location at press time and unavailable for an interview.)
All three spots in the campaign were shot in a total of four days. Heidi Black of The Whitehouse, bicoastal and Chicago, cut "Customer Care," and Ed Goldfarb of Madcap Labs, Corte Madera, Calif., composed the ad’s filmic score. The music keeps pace with the action, Erke said, starting out with an ominous tone because of the storm, and ultimately ending with a heroic flourish.
Coppola, who was thoroughly involved in every aspect of the production, suggested Goldfarb for the music. The director also led Y&R to Fantasy II Film Effects. According to Erke, Coppola proved to be an enthusiastic collaborator from the start. "It was an example of the right person for the job," Erke remarked. "He was very into it and totally devoted. He made some great suggestions to help get certain characters’ personalities across."
Care, Commander O and the rest of the Orbitz marionettes are currently in storage now (the blimp is on display in the Orbitz office, according to Erke), but they may soon get more exposure. Y&R is hoping to do three new Orbitz spots featuring the marionettes—and possibly an additional new character or two—in the fall.
"We’re looking forward to the next round," Erke said.
