A new :30 for Citi Cards created by Fallon, Minneapolis, and directed by Craig Gillespie of bicoastal/international Morton Jankel Zander (MJZ), speaks to all of us who have been tempted to buy something that we can’t afford. "Everybody has been in that position where they really, really want something, and they try their hardest not to buy it. But it keeps calling them," related Fallon creative director/art director Harvey Marco. This ad humorously exaggerates that common quandary and makes the point that Citi Cards (issued by Citibank) come with tools to help manage spending.
As "Self Control" opens, we see a twentysomething man admiring a CD player in an electronics store. He leans forward and presses a button, watching as a panel on the device smoothly closes. It’s a beautiful CD player, and this guy is lusting after it. But when he reaches out to press another button on the CD player, his hand unnaturally bends back toward his body. He resists, but his hand has a mind of its own and grabs the collar of his jacket, jerking him away from the CD player. He lunges forward only to find his body disobeying him again and slamming him to the floor.
His legs start walking, pulling him down an aisle on his belly as his arms reach back toward the CD player. He regains control of his limbs long enough to make another lunge toward the object of his affection, but his hand grasps his head and yanks him back again.
The action freezes and a super appears. It reads: "84% of people try to control their credit card spending."
The action resumes as the guy involuntarily tosses himself out of the store—through a plate-glass window. Looking embarrassed (after all, he seemingly did this to himself), he brushes himself off.
"Citi Cards. All the tools you need to stay in control. That’s using your credit cards wisely," a voiceover says as graphics resembling credit cards and reading "online account management" and "overspending alerts" appear. We then see an image of a Citibank credit card and a final screen with the Citi logo and tagline "Live richly."
SHOPPING TRIP
Gillespie, who has directed Fallon’s last three Citibank campaigns, said he was eager to tackle "Self Control" because it was visually interesting. "It was something I hadn’t done before," Gillespie said.
Of course casting the right actor was key. Gillespie and Fallon settled on Stephen Taylor for his subtle expressiveness as well as his ability to move. "He’s a skateboarder, so he’s Mr. Limber," Marco commented.
Prior to the shoot, Gillespie had Taylor work with dance choreographer Daniel Ezralow as well as the riggers to coordinate his moves. Then, Gillespie and his crew, which included DP Neil Shapiro, shot "Self Control" on location in an empty store in Los Angeles over the course of one day. Alison Sadler served as production designer.
Taylor spent practically the entire day in a harness being yanked about. "He was a trooper," Marco praised. "It was just exhausting watching him being jerked around by this rig."
Most of what you see onscreen is Taylor, although stunt double Andy Dylan performed the window crashing stunt under the supervision of stunt coordinator Gary Jensen.
Gillespie chose to use tempered glass for the stunt as opposed to candy glass. "Every stunt person will be like, ‘Let’s use candy glass.’ But it doesn’t have weight. It looks cheap and shakes," Gillespie said. Tempered glass offers a more realistic look, however, it is more challenging to use because explosive devices (placed at each corner of the window) are used to help shatter the glass. "They have to explode right when the stuntman makes impact with the glass, otherwise he can’t hit it hard enough to break it," Gillespie explained. "So there is timing involved."
While Gillespie aimed to do most of the effects in camera, there are shots in which Taylor had some help from visual effects supervisors Melissa Davies and Adrian Hurley and the rest of the team at Sight Effects, Venice, Calif. "This could be some of the best [effects] work that no one notices," Gillespie said.
Although you might not notice it, one of the scenes Sight Effects enhanced through digital effects was the one in which we see Taylor’s hand bend away from the CD player and back toward his body. "He couldn’t do that naturally, of course," Gillespie said.
In addition to performing digital effects and compositing work on the job, Sight Effects animated the credit card graphics seen at the close of the commercial.
Additional credit goes to editor Eric Zumbrennan of Spot Welders, Venice, Calif. "I just love his pacing. He managed to squeeze so much into it without it feeling rushed, and he made really good choices on performance," Gillespie said.
One of the most difficult aspects of producing "Self Control" was finding the right music. "We had no idea [what to use]," Marco said. "We threw hundreds of pieces of music against it—everything from a Warner Bros.-style cartoon track to really simple instrumental piano." Ultimately, the agency decided to go with what Marco described as "plate-smashing Greek music" composed by Michael Sherwood of bicoastal Elias Arts.
"I have to give Harvey and Dean [Buckhorn, the copywriter] credit for that," Gillespie said. "The music just brings the spot to life because there is such an oddness to it. It has a whimsical quality that works very well."
