Bud Light’s “Secret Fridge,” directed by David McNally of bicoastal Villains through DDB, Chicago, earned the top slot in the 2006 USA Today Super Bowl Ad Meter ratings.
But the spot caught McNally’s eye even when “Secret Fridge” was only ink on paper.
“When I got the boards, there was a package of three spots and they were all great,” he says. “But I instantly thought [“Secret Fridge”] was a great idea. It made me laugh out loud when I read it on the page.”
“Secret Fridge,” which takes place on Super Bowl Sunday, shows a guy stocking his refrigerator with Bud Light. When his friend sees the stash, he expresses concern that their buddies–who are coming over to watch the Big Game–will drink all the beer. That’s when the first guy proudly shows off his solution to the problem: a revolving fridge that hides the Bud Light. What the pair doesn’t realize is that when the fridge revolves, it ends up in another apartment populated by a bunch of guys who worship the beer-bestowing appliance. The spot ends with the more-than-grateful Bud Light recipients ritually bowing down and chanting, “Magic fridge, magic fridge.”
McNally feels that a specific shot strongly contributes to the ad’s effectiveness: a dolly that travels from the first apartment, across the wall, and into the adjacent apartment to reveal the fridge worshippers. “The main concern was to figure out how to pay off the joke,” he says. “There was some discussion whether to cut to the other side of the wall or go through the wall. We had gone into it thinking we’d shoot it both ways, but when we saw the dolly-across [shot] and everyone on set laughed out loud, we said there’s really no point in shooting it any other way.”
The rest of the ad was structured around that key shot. “I thought you needed to treat the rest of the spot very simply,” he says. “In other words, the idea was that the only time the camera would move was when it dollied across and revealed the other room. That became our thing: not to clutter it up with anything complicated and to just keep it a very simple, straightforward story.”
Mercury’s “DMV,” which McNally helmed by way of Young & Rubicam Detroit, shows a different side of the director’s work. The artful ad depicts a deadly dull Department of Motor Vehicles office, where bored drivers wait to have their license photos taken. Spare images of a camera at work punctuate shots of the mind-numbing process. We soon see licenses bearing photos that show some pretty unhappy faces. But then we see an upbeat young woman step up to the camera whose picture turns out nicely. A text appears: “They’re coming. Happy drivers.”
“I thought we could treat this experience we all know in an artistic way that conveyed the emptiness, sterility and boredom we associate with the experience,” says McNally. “The thing I thought was really important was for the humanity to come out through the characters. We tried to cast people whose faces had a story. To me, the heart of any commercial is the cast.”
In addition to being a top-notch spotmaker, McNally also helms features; his theatrical debut was 2000’s Coyote Ugly and his second effort was the family comedy, Kangaroo Jack. Both of the films were produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, who was impressed by Bud’s “Lobster,” which made a splash during the 1999 Super Bowl broadcast, and was directed by McNally via his former roost, now defunct Omaha Pictures, by way of DDB, Chicago.
McNally says both of the features did well, but that after he finished making Kangaroo Jack, he decided to reassess his career. “I started getting a lot of scripts. I was evaluating them, and I thought, ‘Is this really the way I want to spend the rest of my life, both in commercials and in movies?'”
“I felt it was time for a change,” he says. “I’ll always do comedy. I like it, and in commercials it’s obviously a huge market, but I wanted to branch out and do things that have a little more artfulness and are not just straight ahead comedy.”
Shortly before Omaha closed shop in 2005, McNally left the production company, and he still speaks highly of his experience there. McNally then took a few months off to find the right shop to represent his work. His search for a new direction led to him joining Villains. He says that his new production company is just the right fit, and that they are very supportive of his desire to stretch out.
Another product of McNally’s new direction is American Crime, a law show that he created last year. Currently, he’s directing the show’s pilot for Fox Broadcasting. McNally says that the one-hour drama, which is set in Los Angeles, focuses on the forensics of law. McNally, Bruckheimer and Jonathan Littman are the project’s executive producers. (Littman is executive producer for the various franchises of C.S.I.)
Prior to working on the pilot, McNally directed a package of spots for Klondike out of Campbell-Mithun, New York. He says that the quirky ice cream ads feature odd characters in bland suburban settings. It’s clear that the project afforded McNally an opportunity to extend his reach. “It was another foray into something slightly different for me,” he says. And that’s exactly what he’s looking for.
How The Hollywood Awards Calendar Has Been Affected By The Wildfires
Hollywood's awards season has all but come to a rare halt as the wildfires continue to disrupt life and work in the Los Angeles area. There are near daily updates from the Hollywood guilds and organizations that put on awards shows as the industry navigates the ongoing crisis.
Here's an overview of the major upcoming awards shows, from the Oscars to the Grammys, including updated dates for nominations.
Producers Guild and Writers Guild award nominations
Postponed, no new dates announced
The Writers Guild of America nominations were to be announced Jan. 8, a date that was pushed to Jan. 13 and then postponed indefinitely. The Producers Guild of America nominations for feature films were to be announced on Jan. 10, which was pushed to Jan. 12 and then postponed to an unspecified date this week.
Academy Award nominations
Jan. 23
The Oscar nominations have been twice-delayed — they were initially slated for Jan. 17, then Jan. 19, before being delayed again. The delay in the announcement accommodates an extended voting deadline, as many Academy members have been affected by the wildfires.
The nominations will be announced via a "virtual presentation," eschewing press on site.
Critics Choice Awards
Jan. 26
Originally slated for Jan. 12, the awards were set to take place at the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, only miles from the Pacific Palisades neighborhood where fire was raging.
The awards will be broadcast live on E!, hosted by Chelsea Handler.
Grammy Awards
Feb. 2
By virtue of announcing their nominations back in November, the Grammys' schedule has largely been unaffected by the wildfires. Some... Read More