By Fred Cisterna

Super Bowl broadcasts are brimming with rowdy beer ads and pumped-up car commercials, but this year a quietly striking spot also debuted during the Big Game. Dove’s “Little Girls,” helmed by director/DP Michael Rowles of bicoastal Order, via Ogilvy & Mather, Chicago, promotes the Dove Self Esteem fund, which encourages young girls to have better self-mages.
    The spot’s original creative came out of Ogilvy & Mather, Toronto, and initially was shown in cinemas in Canada. It was later recut by the agency’s Chicago office for the Super Bowl broadcast.
    Was Rowles surprised that the marketer chose to air the touching ad during the Super Bowl, which is typically associated with a male demographic?
    “I was completely surprised,” says Rowles. “It was a very bold move, but it was one way to bring some great press to this campaign. I thought it was a great strategic move on their part.”
    “Little Girls” opens with a series of shots showing young girls who sadly lack self-confidence. As we see their uncomfortable visages and body language, supertitles such as “hates her freckles” and “afraid she’s fat” appear. But the spot’s mood shifts after we read the words, “Let’s change their minds.” Now the girls, obviously feeling much better about themselves, light up the screen with their radiant smiles.
    “It was very much like documentary filmmaking,” says Rowles, describing his approach to the project. “We went to great lengths to find the right girls. None of them had been in a commercial. We pulled them from Girl Scout troops, dance groups; wherever we could pull real kids.”
    Rowles says the interview process was key. “We really wanted to get in their heads and almost hear confessions from them about how they felt about themselves. It was very enlightening to hear these young kids who had such image problems at such a young age.”
    Later, the director checked out feedback to the spot on the Dove Self Esteem Web site. “It was amazing how many people were so moved by it,” he says. “The response was overwhelming to me. I saw hundreds and hundreds of pages of responses.”
    A few years ago, Rowles started to shoot, as well as direct, spots. The veteran helmer, who points out that he has always been very involved with a project’s cinematography, goes on to explain why he made the switch to director/DP.
    “I find it so much more beneficial to be a director/cameraman and not have to collaborate with somebody else when I have a vision of what I want to do,” he says. “I feel very connected to the image I’m recording and what the actors are doing. There’s not that lag; I can feel the moment and I can react immediately. For me, there’s a real connection with the camera and the actors when you’ve cut out the middleman.”
    Rowles, who recently directed three spots for Tide through Saatchi & Saatchi, New York, talks about how being a director/DP allowed him to work closely with the kids during the Dove shoot. “These are all kids who had never been on a film set,” he says. “There’s a little bit of intimidation that comes with that. My goal was to try and get these kids as comfortable as possible and to build a trust with them because the camera was very intimate with them and very close.”
    “A lot of kids can freeze up. Sometimes you want to do nothing. If you over-direct real people, they become very conscious of themselves. I try to let them be themselves and discover who they are, as opposed to trying to totally manipulate the situation. I think that really helped us with the Dove campaign.”
    Rowles has even had to use his skills to get into canine heads for some jobs, a challenge he faced directing American Kennel Club’s “Superstar” and “Beyond,” via Doner, Detroit. “Superstar” sends up those familiar athletic shoe spots that feature celebrity athletes with big egos. Here, we see the pooches displaying their athletic prowess minus the cocky attitude associated with their human counterparts.
    “These animals really don’t have an ego,” says Rowles. “The photographic challenge was to highlight these dogs with different shapes, sizes and personalities, and make sure those personalities and the athleticism came across.”
    “Beyond” captures people hanging out with their dogs in a variety of beautifully lensed settings. “Those were pretty much real people also,” he says. “It was showing the emotional connection people have with their dogs and trying to be honest about it.”
    Remarking on the documentary aspect of spots like “Beyond” and “Little Girls,” Rowles says, “The viewer in this day and age is very savvy. When they smell advertising, it may be the moment when they turn the channel. I go to great lengths to try to make it feel genuine and not staged.”
    “I have a visual style but it’s a very fine line between art direction that gives you depth and back story, [and something] that’s too distracting [and] feels like an ad. I always try to walk that line.”

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