By Millie Takaki

Dante Ariola of bicoastal/international MJZ has literally kept an even keel when it comes to nominations for the Directors Guild of America (DGA) Award. He has been a DGA Award nominee for best spot director of 2000, ’02, ’04 and ’06.
    But something odd happened with this last even-numbered nomination–he won the coveted award for the first time.
Shortly after he earned his fourth DGA nomination this past January, he quipped to SHOOT, “I hope I’m not going to be the next Susan Lucci, a reference to the perennial Daytime Emmy-nominated actress who came up empty year after year–until ’04 when she finally won the Emmy.
Yet while Lucci’s run of unfulfilled nominations ran well into double digits, the fourth time proved to be the charm for Ariola based on three commercials: Travelers’ “Snowball” for Fallon, Minneapolis; Johnnie Walker’s “Human” from Bartle Bogle Hegarty, London; and Coca-Cola’s “First Taste” for Wieden+Kennedy, Amsterdam.
    The spots reflect considerable comedic range. You have the visual effects-aided sight of a guy stumbling down a hill and picking up other people and objects along the way, snowballing into a mass of man and machine in “Snowball” for Travelers. Then there’s the esoteric visual humor of an android delivering a soliloquy regarding what it is to be human in the Johnnie Walker ad. And you have the straight-out comedy of “First Taste” in which an elderly man finally takes his first sip of Coke, leading him to exit the retirement home and go out to seek other “first” experiences, some of a questionable nature.
    The latter two commercials are from agencies outside the United States, with Coke’s “First Taste” going on to gain airtime during this year’s Super Bowl telecast. Ariola relates that he’s grateful that the DGA decided to open up the awards competition to foreign entries in ’03. “It’s a global business and it’s good to see that the DGA recognized that.”
    The entry out of an American agency, Travelers’ “Snowball,” has gone on to score other honors, including a pair of Visual Effects Society (VES) Awards for the effects house on the job, Weta Digital in Wellington, New Zealand. “Snowball” took VES honors last month for outstanding visual effects in a commercial and for outstanding compositing in a broadcast program, commercial or music video.
The spot starts out innocently enough. A man on his morning walk passes by a lawn sale with a table containing various sundry items. He stumbles, knocks into the table, sending its contents along with him down a steep hill to gather other items and people in what is a building “snowball” of humanity and inanimate objects.
    Becoming part of this ball are pedestrians, a line of motorcycles, a minivan, an entire wedding party, including the bride and groom–even a bicyclist who sees the pending doom and attempts to peddle away but to no avail. Finally this humongous ball hits a building and disperses, with the people amazingly able to walk away unscathed and most of the objects looking pretty much intact. A voiceover then relates, “When your insurance is in synch, you can roll with anything.” The Travelers logo then appears on screen.

Compass reading
    While he’s grateful to garner the actual award recognition from the DGA, Ariola observes that the nominations in and of themselves have always been cause for celebration for him personally. “I’ve been here [at the DGA Awards ceremony] three other times without my name being called, but I still had a great time hanging out with all the directors I respect,” he recalls. “I was never disappointed not to win. I’m not competitive when it comes to this kind of stuff.”
    In terms of what the nomination means to him, he observes that his role as a director trying to do justice to a creative concept from an ad agency “can feel like bumbling through a dark room containing someone else’s furniture.” But, he views a DGA Award nomination as “a compass that tells me I’m heading in the right direction.”
    He also praises the advertising agency collaborators behind “Snowball,” “First Taste” and “Human.” “I’m happy for those creative people because their good work is also being honored [with the DGA Award]. They were a pleasure to work with, good people, several of whom I consider my friends. It shows that the process doesn’t have to be a nightmare, there doesn’t have to be a hellish battle to get good product and good results.”

Second home
    MJZ is only the second professional production company home the director has known in his career. His last three DGA nominations came for work produced by that house, which has become a DGA Awards mainstay in recent years. Ariola’s recent win marked the second consecutive year that an MJZ helmer has garnered the coveted DGA Award; Craig Gillespie won last year for best commercial director of ’05. And for four of the past five years, MJZ has had more than one DGA Award nominee in the commercials category, with Ariola playing a prominent role in contributing to that impressive tally.
    Ariola became a first-time nominee while at now defunct Propaganda Films, his DGA spot competition entries in ’01 (for best commercial director of ’00) being Nike’s “Elephant” for Wieden+Kennedy, Portland, Ore., and Hewlett-Packard’s “Taxi” and “Tickets,” both out of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners in San Francisco. “Elephant” is particularly memorable in that it features Tour de France-winning bicyclist Lance Armstrong resuscitating an elephant by blowing air into its mouth.
    As it turned out, that year noted director Leslie Dektor of Dektor Film, Hollywood, won the DGA Award, but that didn’t diminish the accomplishment of Ariola who landed a nomination after just three years of directing commercials. In fact that first nomination came on the heels of his having directed a couple of spots, Volkswagen’s “Bear” and “Big Day” from Arnold Worldwide, Boston, which aired during the Super Bowl XXXV telecast. And the previous year a Budget rental car campaign he directed for Cliff Freeman and Partners, New York, won a Gold Lion at the ’00 Cannes International Advertising Festival.
    Clearly Ariola has since proven his consistency in excellence as evidenced by assorted other industry awards as well as three more Directors Guild Award nominations, not to mention this year’s DGA win.
Ariola didn’t set out to be a spot director.  He initially ran Pawn Shop, a Los Angeles-based graphics business which, among other endeavors, designed logos and packaging for local bands.
    Then one day Ariola’s Pawn Shop partner suggested he direct music videos for their clients. Ariola did just that and shortly thereafter his clips for such acts as Cake and 311 had started to elicit interest from the advertising community. Production companies and agencies began to seek him out. His first commercialmaking gig was Aiwa’s “Revolution,” a job run through now defunct Commotion Pictures on the West Coast. The experience convinced Ariola to consider a directing career, leading him to sign with Propaganda Films, beginning an odyssey sprinkled with regular gratifying  doses of DGA recognition.

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