By Christine Champagne

Some sculptors work with clay. Others prefer Starburst fruit chews as we see in a wonderfully weird new spot created by TBWA/Chiat/Day, New York, and directed by Rocky Morton of bicoastal/international Morton Jankel Zander (MJZ).

Set in a high school, “Art Center” (:30) finds a teenage boy inviting a girl he is infatuated with to the art studio to see the work of art that he has created in her honor–it’s a bust of the pretty blonde sculpted out of Starburst fruit chews.

That’s quite a declaration of love, although it soon becomes apparent that the boy desires Starburst fruit chews as much–if not more–than the girl when he takes a bite out of his tasty creation, chomping off the bust’s nose in front of the shocked lass.

 

TEEN SCREAM

While “Art Center” is aimed primarily at boys in their upper teens, the spot will likely elicit a chuckle from adults because of a sonic joke cleverly embedded in the commercial in form of the Lionel Richie tune “Hello.” Those of you who watched MTV in the 1980s will recall the unintentionally creepy video for “Hello” that cast Richie as an art teacher obsessed with a blind student.

“Art Center” wasn’t actually inspired by or intended to parody the music video for “Hello,” noted TBWA group creative director Scott Vitrone. “We never started with that reference. The spot was initially scripted with no music,” Vitrone explained. “Then after we got down the road, we thought it might be cool to put [a reference to “Hello”] in there very subtly, and if some people get the wink, then that’s great. But it didn’t drive the concept.”

The concept was actually born out of the creatives’ desire to find a simple–yet twisted–way to get the word out that Starburst fruit chews taste good.

Incidentally, it should be noted that two spots conveying that message, “Art Center” and another spot titled “Lemon” (:15) that was also directed by Morton, currently serve as an interim campaign of sorts for Starburst while TBWA, which recently inherited the  account from Grey, New York, formulates a new strategy for the brand, according to Vitrone.

 

SWEET SPOT

From the start, Morton knew that the success of “Art Center” would depend on the casting of the love-struck boy. “It was a very difficult role to cast because boys at that age don’t want to come across as being strange in any way,” Morton mused.

After seeing hundreds of potentials, Morton chose Victor Isaac to play the pivotal part.

Casting the role of the girl was easier in one sense in that the role wasn’t as complex as that of the boy; however, there were other factors that had to be considered, mainly the girl’s appearance. “Part of the casting [for the girl] was looking for someone who could be turned into a bust easily,” TBWA group creative director Ian Reichenthal shared. “Some people just had certain features that stood out as something that could translate into a bust.”

Ultimately, Courtney Hope was cast in the role, and the next step in the process required a sculptor to make a mold of her head onto which Starburst fruit chews were artfully placed.

The sculptor experimented with the look of the piece, fashioning everything from abstract to more detailed busts. In the end, it was decided the bust that presented the most realistic portrait of the girl would work best in the spot. “We wanted to retain the character of the girl so that you would believe the boy was actually trying to make a sculpture that looked like her,” Morton said.

With the masterpiece complete, Morton and DP Julian Whatley shot “Art Center” in one day on location at a church/community center in Los Angeles.

The shoot went smoothly. “The only thing that took a little time was every time the boy did a take, he devoured the girl’s face. So we had to go in and rebuild the nose,” Vitrone shared.

“We had several noses on standby,” Reichenthal chimed in with a laugh.

Once the shoot wrapped, editor Dave Koza of MacKenzie Cutler, New York, cut the spot. “The cut didn’t change that much from the initial cut,” Vitrone said. “The only thing we messed with–and it ended up making the final cut–was the part where after the boy turns the bust, and then it goes to the static shots where the bust is looking straight into the camera.”

So what became of the bust after the project wrapped? Might this unique piece of art wind up in the permanent collection of New York’s Museum of Modern Art? “Unfortunately, that won’t be possible,” Reichenthal reported. “When the bust got shipped back to the agency from the shoot, it was packed in a box with those Styrofoam pellets, and some of those stuck to it, and now it’s kind of ruined.”

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