"Dangers" Teams Shelter Films With Wieden & Kennedy, Portland, Ore.
CLIENT
Nike.
PRODUCTION CO.
Shelter Films, bicoastal. Jonathan David, director; Andy Dintenfass, DP; Steve Shore, executive producer; Buzzy Cancilla, producer; Carol Milne, production manager. Shot on location.
AGENCY
Wieden & Kennedy, Portland, Ore. Jamie Barrett, creative director; Patty Brebner, producer; Rob Palmer, art director; Mike Smith, copywriter.
STOCK FOOTAGE
Energy Film Library, Studio City, Calif. Warren Miller Films, Boulder, Colo. David Breashears, Boston.
EDITORIAL
Joint, Portland, Ore. Peter Wieden-Smith, editor.
POST
Company 3, Santa Monica. Stefan Sonnenfeld, colorist. The Finish Line, Santa Monica. James Bygrave, Henry artist; Oscar Sanchez, Henry assistant.
AUDIO POST/SOUND DESIGN
Warner Bros. Studios, Burbank, Calif. Bob Redpath, mixer/sound designer.
BY CAROLYN GIARDINA
"Dangers" may resemble the IMAX film Everest, but it is actually a spot in the latest Nike campaign, a documentary-style series of commercials that features a team of devout golfers wearing Nike’s T C golf shoes to get the traction they need to play the ultimate course–Mt. Everest.
"Dangers," directed by Jonathan David of bicoastal Shelter Films via Wieden & Kennedy, Portland, Ore., begins 26,000 feet up, at a camp, with the interview of a golfer who warns us, "When golfing Everest, there’s more than just traction to consider." The spot cuts to a lone climber on the side of the mountain, wearing golf shoes and carrying clubs in his backpack. The interviewee discusses the benefits of Nike’s T C golf shoes but notes that the shoes don’t protect against oxygen deprivation. Lack of oxygen, he says, first becomes evident in conversation. Higher up on the mountain, two oxygen-deprived golfers exchange words. "What club did you use?" asks the first. The response: "My father’s a wonderful dentist."
The man at camp adds, "Next to go is golf etiquette." Back up on the mountain the first golfer is preparing to swing his club when the second staggers in front of the shot. The first complains, repeating, "My father’s a wonderful dentist."
"I wanted the campaign to feel as though we pulled 30-second portions out of a much longer documentary film about golfing Mt. Everest," David explained. He went for the appearance that the production team "followed the expedition, but with a documentary-style handheld [camera] … for more of a classic document."
The :30 was shot on a glacier in British Columbia. The biggest obstacle, David said, was time. "There’s only so much time in a day. … Getting the crew and equipment up there took a long time." The production team traveled by snowmobile and helicopter. They had about 12-14 hours of daylight each of the three days it took to shoot the campaign, and the team had to pack up early in order to be off the mountain before night. Variable weather conditions also slowed them down.
David said he told the actors, who were cast in Vancouver, B.C., to "play completely straight" since the concept was "naturally" funny. The production team hired professional mountain climbers for many of the shots.
"We had them talk as if they were in the situation, with no distance from it," David explained. "We let the situation speak for itself. We weren’t trying to be funny. … The situation’s funny."
David noted that the entire team collaborated to ensure that the spots did not feel staged. "We didn’t want to feel the hand of comedy," he stressed. "For realism, the actors even altered their speech patterns in shots that were supposed to be high up on the mountain."
"The joke’s about playing golf in an absurd situation," W&K copywriter Mike Smith commented. "We have shoes with outstanding traction and grip. … I can’t think of a more challenging place to play golf."
Compositing and finishing was handled on the Henry at The Finish Line, Santa Monica. Henry artist James Bygrave composited stock footage of imposing mountains, including Everest itself, into the shots. He added mist to create the feel of being at a high altitude. He also cleaned up footprints in the snow.
In one shot in which a professional climber is on the side of a vertical incline, Bygrave removed the climbing shoes and added Nike sneakers. Using Henry, he also put some golf clubs in the climber’s backpack.
The "Golfing Everest" campaign is rounded out by "Base Camp," "Slow Play," "White Balls" and "Putt."
***
Saatchi Wolfs Down
Honey Nut Cheerios
CLIENT
General Mills/Honey Nut Cheerios.
PRODUCTION CO.
MacLeod & Partners, London. Bill Mather, director; Alex Thomson, DP; Keith Valentine, executive producer; Luke Beauchamp, producer. Animatronics by Animated Extras, London. Daniel Parker, Ali Eynon and Rick Marr, animatronic operators. Shot at Shepperton Studios, London.
AGENCY
Saatchi & Saatchi, New York. Sean Kiener, creative director/art director; Steve Centeno, creative director/copywriter; Jerry Levenson, executive producer; Eric Korte, music director.
EDITORIAL
Uli Meyer Animation, London. Mark Farrington and Matt Saxton, editors.
POST/VISUAL EFFECTS
Uli Meyer Animation. Uli Meyer, animation director; Julie Pye, producer; Simon Leech, SFX supervisor; Dean Roberts, Andreas Van Andrian, Micheal Schlingman, Vladimir Todorov and Paul Chung, animators; Barry Goff, Jimmy Farrington and Jon Brooks, SFX animators; Susanne Slatcher, CGI animator; Niel Bushnell, Chris Clarke, Hae Sook Park, Dave McFall, Katerina Kremasioti, Gail Walton, Philip Anderson, Tim White and Antonella Russo, assistant animators; Ron McMinn, Sky Bone, Jamie Ash, Lorraine Ward, James Pyott, Dino Demonsthenous and Nicola Pirkis, SFX assistants; Ben Carver, Jason Guest and Barny North, digital ink and paint; Yourick Van Impe, postproduction compositor.
AUDIO POST
Howard Schwartz Recording, New York. Bill Higley, mixer.
SOUND DESIGN
Red Dog Music, New York. Stuart Kollmorgen, sound designer.
THE SPOT
The :30 "Little Red Riding Hood" combines live action, animatronics and animation in a tale featuring a wolf who must choose between a little girl and a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios. Kelsey Grammer supplies the voice of the wolf.
Spot broke in July.
***
Radium Leaps Into
TV Screen For RCA
CLIENT
RCA.
PRODUCTION CO.
Road Pictures, Indianapolis. Jonathan Keeton and Dan Henne, co-directors; Ralph Young, co-director/DP; Greg Malone and Kim Kline, executive producers; Houston Winn, producer. Shot at ICBO Studios, Indianapolis, and on location.
AGENCY
Miller Brooks, Zionsville, Ind. Dan Henne, creative director/art director; Jay Soule, producer.
POST/VISUAL EFFECTS
Western Images, San Francisco. Gary Coates, colorist. Radium, San Francisco. Jonathan Keeton, Alaina Goetz and Danielle Ciccarelli, Flame artists; Davi Stein, Flint artist; William Opdyke, CG animator; Dana Townsend, executive producer; Kelly Gibbs, producer.
AUDIO POST
Michael Boyd Music, San Francisco. Charles Judge, engineer/mixer; Hector Perez, assistant engineer.
MUSIC/SOUND DESIGN
Michael Boyd Music. Michael Boyd, composer/arranger/sound designer.
THE SPOT
Two :30s focus on the picture quality of RCA televisions. "Dolphin" opens with a large-screen RCA TV set next to a tree in the middle of an arid plain. A woman standing near the set raises her arm and a dolphin rises from the landscape, leaps through the TV screen and lands with a splash in the image of the South Pacific. In "Angel," the TV sits on a beach with a butterfly fluttering about its screen. An angel appears and helps the butterfly pass through the screen and into a mountain landscape.
Spots broke in June.
***
(Colossal), WI, POP
Deliver For Coke
CLIENT
The Coca-Cola Co.
PRODUCTION CO.
(Colossal) Pictures, San Francisco. George Evelyn, director; Jana Canellos, executive producer; Amy Capen, producer. 2-D character animation by Chuck Gammage Animation, Oakville, Ontario. Chuck Gammage, animation director. 3-D modeling/digital animation by Little Fluffy Clouds, San Francisco. Jerry van de Beek, animation director.
AGENCY
Edge Creative, Santa Monica. Len Fink, Jack Harrower and Shelly Hochron, creative directors; Nick Hippisley-Coxe, executive producer; Robyn Boardman, producer.
POST
Western Images, San Francisco. Bob Roesler, digital artist; Mark Tellegen, colorist.
VISUAL EFFECTS
Cha-Pow!, Jackson, N.J. Ed Mironiuk and Kris Tercek, digital ink and paint artists.
AUDIO POST
POP Sound, Santa Monica. Mark Meyuhas, mixer.
MUSIC/SOUND DESIGN
Michael Boyd Music, San Francisco. Michael Boyd, composer/sound designer.
THE SPOT
The :30 "Delivery Truck" is a sequel to Coke’s "Factory" spot from last year. Animal characters are driving a truck, puttering merrily through a colorful, cartoony landscape. The truck stalls when the mouse under the hood has overheated and his bottle of Coke is empty. A second soda refreshes the mouse and takes the truck back onto the road and into town, where thirsty citizens await the delivery.
Spot broke July 6.
***
Renegade Animation
Hits The Bull’s Eye
CLIENT
Kraft Foods/Bull’s-Eye BBQ Sauce.
PRODUCTION CO.
Morton Jankel Zander, Los Angeles. Rocky Morton, director; Tami Reiker, DP; David Zander, executive producer; Kathy Wheelock, producer. Shot on location.
AGENCY
Foote, Cone & Belding, Chicago. Dave Moeller, creative director; Mike Leary, producer; Doug Behm, art director; John Claxton, copywriter.
EDITORIAL
NuWorld Editorial, Chicago. Bob Carr, editor.
POST
i^3, Chicago. Arturo Cubacub, online editor. The Filmworkers Club, Chicago. Michael Mazur, colorist.
VISUAL EFFECTS
Renegade Animation, Burbank, Calif. Darrell Van Citters, director; Dean Wellins, animator; Ashley Quinn, executive producer.
AUDIO POST
Cutters, Chicago. John Binder, engineer/mixer.
SOUND DESIGN
Primal Scream, Santa Monica. Reinhard Denke, sound designer.
THE SPOT
The :30 "Cowboy" opens on what appears to be a cowboy grilling his dinner but is actually a suburbanite with an overactive fantasy life tending a grill on his patio. The spot ends with the tag, "Ain’t nothin’ more cowboy than Bull’s-Eye," accompanied by a close-up of the Bull’s-Eye bottle. The animated bull rises off of bottle, comes toward the camera, and snorts.
Spot broke June
