There are probably a hundred different ways to illustrate the notion of privacy in a commercial. But ask Michel Gondry of bicoastal/international Partizan for an execution, and prepare to see the one thing you hadn’t thought of. In a new spot for Earthlink titled "Privacy," out of TBWA/Chiat/Day, Los Angeles, the director brings his unique vision to the concept of anonymity and the Internet.
Picture the most private room in your house—a place only a select few ever see. The bedroom? The bathroom? Let’s consider both. Most people perform the same morning ritual every day: getting out of bed and heading to the bathroom. It is the common denominator of all human beings and, to the world, you are unseen in this action. But what if someone—or something—were watching you? And what if this voyeur watched every single person get out of bed in the morning? That’s where the spot begins.
The :30 opens on a room simply furnished with a bed, nightstand, bookshelf, desk and dresser. A single person rises from the bed, walks over to the bureau, gets a towel and heads into the bathroom. Sounds simple enough—except the person performing the action changes every two frames. There is a man, a woman, a pregnant woman, an Asian man, then another man, and on it goes. The film loop flips so rapidly that you can barely make out what each person looks like (expressing anonymity), yet the overall action of getting up and moving towards the bathroom is fluid.
A voiceover ominously intones, "They’re watching you, compiling your information, invading your privacy … " By the time the person(s) reach(es) the bathroom, walks over to the sink and splashes water on his/her face, the loop has slowed to the point where only one person is left in the frame: a woman looking at herself in the mirror. The corresponding copy continues with "… [they’re] revealing your identity."
The scene then cuts to a different environment. The loop begins to pick up speed as the same people sequentially stand on the landing outside the apartment, lock the door, zip up a jacket, and walk down the stairs. The voiceover continues, "At Earthlink, we would never do that." The speed of the loop increases to such a staggering pace that no one’s face or figure can be made out, as the final voiceover states, "We just reveal the totally anonymous Internet." The tag: "Get Linked."
While the ad is a departure from Earthlink’s earlier "Get Linked" campaign that featured animated characters against a stark orange background, it still remains visually associated; the film in "Privacy" has a warm, orange tinge, reminiscent of the company’s signature look. But colors aside, the agency’s ultimate aim was to have each spot in the campaign reflect a different artistic vision. "We want to bring in different people to help form this new world where new artists and new technology and new styles come in and push the artistic envelope, as they say," explained TBWA/Chiat/Day, Los Angeles, art director Chuck Monn. In the case of "Privacy," it was Gondry’s turn to bring his special flavor of filmmaking to the table.
"Privacy" is Gondry’s first commercial effort after wrapping his feature film Human Nature, due out later this year. According to the agency, the director had as much to do with the concept as the concept had to do with the director. "We had the idea, but bringing in Michel made it unbelievably amazing," said Monn.
Gondry came to the agency with a filming technique that visually explained the way he would execute the idea of human connectivity. He had spent, according to Monn, four hours at home filming himself getting up from a chair and walking over to a dresser. He had then run those shots in a loop, simulating the flipping action we see in the spot. "When he came to us with this, it blew our minds," recalled Monn. "The technique required us to take another look at the boards and see how we could bring this in and make it work for the concept," added TBWA/ Chiat/Day, Los Angeles creative director/ copywriter Rich Siegel.
The creation of the spot turned into a family affair. Gondry’s brother, Olivier Twist Gondry, who is affiliated with Santa Monica-based Method, stepped in and wrote a computer program especially for the spot, that would automatically select the next appropriate shot. "It would choose the best character to fit the motion," reported Michel Gondry, noting that his brother needed only one week to develop the program.
The spot was shot over the course of two days, at Ten 9 Fifty Stages, Culver City, Calif. Thirty "ordinary looking" people falling between the heights of 5’7" and 5’9" were cast for the ad. Each actor was shot performing the exact same action, with the environment around him or her slightly changing in order to suggest that you are viewing a different home every time you see a different actor. "After each person [was shot], the whole crew and art department would come into the set to change the worlds—the bed sheets, some of the furniture, and all the books were moved around from scene to scene," explained Gondry. "It was like a little factory and everybody was trying to beat the [previous] time recorded. In the beginning it would take twenty minutes, and by the end it would take, like, six minutes."
Each scene was shot simultaneously by three locked-off cameras placed at various angles. In addition, blank plates were shot for each rebuilt background. While the lensing was described by Monn as "the most excruciatingly boring shoot in the history of all shoots," the bigger challenge came for postproduction house Buf Compagnie, Paris and Los Angeles.
Buf was deployed to create movement and transition between the fixed frame shots. At a rate of one person per two frames, this was an enormous task.
Under the supervision of Buf Compagnie owner Pierre Buffin, Buf rebuilt the camera movement for each scene by 2-D morphing the empty back plates from one locked-off camera angle to the next—essentially creating camera movement for the set.
Gondry gave Buf an initial cut showing the order in which he wanted the actors to alternate based on the program his brother had built. Since nothing was shot on blue screen, Buf had to separate the actors from the different plates and create a smooth transition according to the way the actors would alternate. The final stage was to composite the actor plates to the background plates. Every step had to be done in the context of the rebuilt camera movement.
The pacing of the spot was complemented by a track called "Time Therapy," composed by Bix, an Icelandic artist. The music was recommended to the agency by Ten Music, Los Angeles, from which the agency purchased the track.
Asked what the biggest challenge was on the project, Gondry responded: "We made it much more complicated than it had to be, like changing the lighting and rooms every time. Since this effect was new, I wasn’t sure it was going to work—so I had to pretend all along that it was fine, which was a bit scary. But that’s what makes it exciting."
