A Super showing
By Robert Goldrich
It’s only March and already director Craig Gillespie of MJZ has had an eventful 2010. In January, he earned his fourth career nomination for the DGA Award in the commercials category.
In February, he was the most ubiquitous director on the Super Bowl telecast, having helmed Bud Light’s “Stranded” and “Asteroid” for St. Louis agency Cannonball, Snicker’s “Game” featuring Betty White and Abe Vigoda via BBDO New York, Cars.com’s “Timothy Richman” for DDB Chicago, CareerBuilder’s “Casual Friday” (client-direct and the result of a consumer-generated content contest), and the dual Emerald Nuts/Pop Secret commercial “Awesomer” from Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco.
As for this month, Gillespie was slated at press time to begin shooting a pilot for an hourlong ABC drama series.
Common thread
If there’s a unifying theme to these diverse accomplishments and credits from January through March, they all represent an ongoing diversification for Gillespie. For example, the three commercial entries which earned him his latest DGA nomination were: Car.com’s “David Abernathy” for DDB Chicago; Guinness’ “Slide” out of BBDO New York; and Orbit’s “Dusty for Energy BBDO Chicago.
“I tried to show a bit of an expanded range beyond the comedy/dialogue work for which I’ve been nominated in the past,” noted Gillespie. While “David Abernathy” has a wry humor, it had quite a cinematic feel. The combination resonated when the commercial debuted during the ’09 Super Bowl telecast.
Also stretching perceptions of Gillespie was “Slide,” which entailed adroit visual effects work showing a glass of Guinness making its way in Rube Goldberg-esque style along a winding path to an office building window ledge and eventually an office desk in front of–and as a libation for–an earnest worker who boldly asks his boss for a raise after less than a week on the job.
However, not departing from the comedy/dialogue genre for which Gillespie is known was “Dusty” which gives us an over-the-top depiction of Orbit chewing gum being the ultimate antidote for dry mouth.
“I love continuing to be able to do comedy,” said Gillespie, “but it was nice to also showcase some different kinds of work for me as well.”
The range of comedy is considerably greater, for example, than that which earned him not only a nomination for but also the DGA Award itself as best commercial director of 2005.
Similarly, there’s comedic range to be found in February’s crop of Gillespie-directed Super Bowl spots. For example, the return Cars.com engagement had a definite cinematic vibe. Snickers is physical comedy with some hand-held shooting touches placing White and Vigoda on the gridiron–and in the process registering as number one in the day-after USA Today poll ranking the public’s favorite Big Game commercials. CareerBuilder is intentionally awkward and uncomfortable, thrusting us into a workplace populated by underwear-clad employees. And the joint Emerald Nuts/Pop Secret promo is flat out over the top and off the wall.
Empathy Years back prior to becoming a director, Gillespie first established himself on the agency side of the business, primarily as an art director for some eight years.
“Now as a director, I have empathy for what ad agency creatives go through–with even greater pressures brought to bear on them for a Super Bowl spot,” said Gillespie. “But the trick is not to let the pressure contaminate your choices. If you sit back and dwell too much on what’s at stake, you can get paralyzed.
“I give the creatives I worked with this year a lot of credit for not being afraid to take chances,” continued Gillespie.”In the Snickers spot, we wound up with dialogue that hadn’t been scripted. And the hurricane scene with the cheerleaders wasn’t originally planned for Cars.com. Everybody had the courage to try to make the work better.”
As for how he wound up with so much Big Game fare, Gillespie said, “It was hardly anything you plan for. Circumstances just came together. I got CareerBuilder very early on by Super Bowl standards, back in October. By contrast the Snickers spot happened very late in the game–it came from a relationship I enjoy with BBDO. There was also repeat business with Cars.com for the second straight year on the Super Bowl. Thankfully it all came together.”
Television content is also coming together for Gillespie who last year directed the pilot for the well received Showtime drama/comedy series United States of Tara and went on to helm four more episodes.
Now Gillespie moves further and deeper into the dramatic realm with the alluded to ABC hourlong pilot for an undisclosed series–though he added that there are elements of comedy in the show.
“It was just a great script that came my way,” said Gillespie. “Whether television, features or commercials, it all comes down to if I’m attracted to the work and feel I can bring something more to it.”
Review: Malcolm Washington Makes His Feature Directing Debut With “The Piano Lesson”
An heirloom piano takes on immense significance for one family in 1936 Pittsburgh in August Wilson's "The Piano Lesson." Generational ties also permeate the film adaptation, in which Malcolm Washington follows in his father Denzel Washington's footsteps in helping to bring the entirety of The Pittsburgh Cycle — a series of 10 plays — to the screen.
Malcolm Washington did not start from scratch in his accomplished feature filmmaking debut. He enlisted much of the cast from the recent Broadway revival with Samuel L. Jackson (Doaker Charles), his brother, John David Washington (Boy Willie), Ray Fisher (Lymon) and Michael Potts (Whining Boy). Berniece, played by Danielle Brooks in the play, is now beautifully portrayed by Danielle Deadwyler. With such rich material and a cast for whom it's second nature, it would be hard, one imagines, to go wrong. Jackson's own history with the play goes back to its original run in 1987 when he was Boy Willie.
It's not the simplest thing to make a play feel cinematic, but Malcolm Washington was up to the task. His film opens up the world of the Charles family beyond the living room. In fact, this adaptation, which Washington co-wrote with "Mudbound" screenwriter Virgil Williams, goes beyond Wilson's text and shows us the past and the origins of the intricately engraved piano that's central to all the fuss. It even opens on a big, action-filled set piece in 1911, during which the piano is stolen from a white family's home. Another fleshes out Doaker's monologue in which he explains to the uninitiated, Fisher's Lymon, and the audience, the tortured history of the thing. While it might have been nice to keep the camera on Jackson, such a great, grounding presence throughout, the good news is that he really makes... Read More