With the Gatorade Fierce campaign entering its third year, the sports drink company’s contracted stable of professional athletes has been pitted against some menacing foes. In previous spots out of FCB Chicago, Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning called plays against a team of wild lions and Toronto Raptors forward Vince Carter dribbled and dunked against vicious prehistoric Velociraptors. This year, New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter was selected to do battle, but while his sports drink brethren fought opponents associated with their respective sport’s mascots, having Jeter play baseball against Civil War-era federal or confederate soldiers wasn’t what creatives at Gatorade’s current agency, Chicago-based Element 79 Partners, had in mind. Copywriter Jon Flannery and art director Geoffrey Edwards put their minds to choosing a foe in line with Jeter’s image.
"We wanted to do something that was big and heroic and a little bit epic," said Flannery. "[We selected gargoyles by] sitting around thinking, ‘New York Yankees … New York … gothic … Gotham City … old buildings with gargoyles … Hey, wouldn’t it be cool if those things called Derek out to a midnight game and he smokes them.’"
The commercial, titled "Visitor," was directed by David Denneen of bicoastal Anonymous Content (which reps him in the U.S.) and Sydney-based Film Graphics Productions. The latter is Australian helmer Denneen’s shop, which handles him for projects outside the U.S. "Visitor" followed the movie trailer mold. Besides facilitating the heroic premise, this format was selected for its expeditious use of time and dialogue so editor Toby Denneen (director David’s son) of Film Graphics could fit 35 edits into a :30. "We wanted this spot to be like a mini-trailer for an action movie," said Flannery. "I actually love movie trailers. The cutting is succinct and they give you just the right amount of dialogue to move you through."
Certainly, getting gargoyles to play baseball is easier said than done, and the job of making it happen fell to director Denneen and to special effects facility Animal Logic, Sydney. "Visitor" is an ambitious project using an athlete actor and a great deal of computer animation. Denneen, quite aware of this, expressed concern going into the project. "There was a big responsibility not only on Animal Logic’s head but also on mine to make sure the spot went through at a pretty high standard," Denneen said. "I didn’t know how Jeter would perform, and I was nervous about that. I didn’t know how good the modelmakers were going to be. I didn’t know how our designs were going to look. Pre-production is always terrifying. Postproduction is always a joy, but in this case, post went on for so long and often, it was like recreating the pre-production because the gargoyles took so long to build."
"Visitor," DP’d by Emmanuel Lubezki (Ali, Great Expectations) with music and sound design through Groove Addicts, Los Angeles, begins with Jeter entering a dilapidated, gothic-style stadium. His SUV’s headlights barely pierce the thick nighttime scene. Jeter looks quizzical. "Midnight?" he says. "Whose idea was this?"
Somewhere nearby, a winged, devilish gargoyle awakens and pulls free from its stony perch. Already in flight are two of its gothic cousins on their way to the stadium. Jeter senses danger. Behind him a scoreboard "lights up" in flames as each inning number successively ignites. Jeter looks in the direction of his airborne opponents and says, "This is going to get ugly." From high above the stadium we see the long shadows of the gargoyles growing shorter and shorter until they land on the field with a thud. The gargoyle leader releases an awful, high-pitched battle cry and Jeter reaches for his bat. Clearly visible among his other equipment is a bottle of Gatorade Fierce lying in his mitt. "Real ugly," he adds through clenched teeth and then steps into the batter’s box.
The gargoyle pitcher hurls the first pitch and Jeter smacks it towards third base. One of the gothic creatures moves to field the ball but it is too hard-hit. The line drive shatters the fielder into concrete bits. At Jeter’s next swing, the ball heads for the wall. A gargoyle takes flight to catch it but meets the same fate and crumbles to the ground. Jeter assumes his trademarked batting stance for the next pitch but it comes in close, too close. The Yankee shoots a look to the mound where the monstrous pitcher lets out a sinister snicker. Taunting Jeter, the pitcher playfully tosses the next ball up into the air where it ignites. Jeter, newly energized after the brush-back, prepares for the fireball. Beads of orange sweat, courtesy of visual effects/design house A52, Los Angeles, appear on his skin and his eyes narrow. The gargoyle’s sinewy body is in full extension when the flaming pitch is released. Jeter swings and there is a crack of the bat. The ball is smashed straight at the pitcher. For a split second, the gargoyle gives a surprised look just before the ball rips into its masonry body and the rocky remains fall to the field.
Jeter slings his bag over his shoulder and has a swig of Gatorade while the announcer informs us that Gatorade Fierce is "so bold, it’s fierce." Nearly out of the stadium, Jeter’s path is blocked by two gargoyle heads releasing ear-piercing shrieks into his face. A long shot reveals that the heads are attached to the same body and Jeter, with his back to the camera gazes upwards at the towering beast. "Great," he says, "double-header."
The ‘Look’
"What’s hard is the unknown," said Edwards about shooting "Visitor," "and in this spot, the unknown was the gargoyles. There is an amazing amount of choreography that happens even before we go to special effects, and that is all timing. But it is tough to judge timing because you are judging it against blue screen. That’s when you really have to depend on the director because he sees that vision before it comes to life. We, back in ‘Advertising Land,’ want to know why we are spending so much time on a certain frame and a director will tell you, ‘Trust me. You’ll need that time.’ "
After a week of shooting, "Visitor" went into postproduction for four months where elements were composited, the gothic feel was perfected and the villainous gargoyles were designed, redesigned multiple times, and animated. "We tried to design a few different styles of gargoyles and they ended up looking like dragons or monsters and we just couldn’t get it right—I couldn’t do it and I am a pretty good animator," said Denneen. "That’s why I ended up bringing in Phil Meatchem [animation director/designer, Film Graphics] to do it. As soon as he worked the characters, the thing just vibed and the spot went in the right direction."
Denneen moved from directing Jeter to directing CG gargoyles without flinching. "Directing animation is still directing actors. It is not any different," he said. "You have to use the best artists, of course, but even the best have to be guided. Artists make incredible contributions but without direction, they will end up taking a slant different from the way you want it to go."
Animal Logic creative director Bruce Carter agrees. "It’s a character spot. The gargoyles are the performers and as a director, Denneen is directing performance. At the end of the day, you have to believe that those gargoyles are going to take Derek and rip him apart and you’ve got to set that tension up. That is what David is here to do."
Fitting 35 scenes into a :30 made most everyone think about lengthening the spot. "When I did the storyboard," recounted Denneen, "I thought it should be a :60. But I am, at heart, an animator and I am used to doing very short actions and very short scenes with minimal action that say a lot."
"Of course we said to the agency that we would love to make this into a sixty and we even begged for forty-five," said Carter, "but the challenge was making it work in thirty.
David Denneen’s background in animation and experience as a high-end director may have been the most crucial element to the success of the spot. It meant that he could stay with the project until the end and comfortably speak the language of those working on it. "Any job that I’ve done, I follow it through all the way," said Denneen. "In America the agency pretty much takes over the role of the director when it comes to editing and conforming the end result. So I took it upon myself to make sure that I was available to follow the job through because I really love doing it and I want to make sure that it ended up the way I felt it should."
"More and more directors are recognizing that the visual effects component is a digital production stage," Carter commented. "As much as you capture elements in live action as a first step—and still probably the most important part—your job is not over until you’ve worked through the digital component and finished it off."
In the end, all agree that without the extensive pre-production, a process that required contributions from everyone, "Visitor," would not have succeeded at the level it did.
"For us, pre-production is the most important part of the process," said Carter. "It is really where all of the issues are defined. By the time you go into production, you have a pretty good idea of what you are doing. Then later, during postproduction, you are putting into place a lot of stuff that has already been talked about."
