A different kind of expedition
By Millie Takaki
This past year saw Eric Saarinen direct and lens an HD documentary about Eskimos on a polar bear hunt. His two weeks in weather ranging between zero and 20 degrees below has since given way to another expedition, one offering a much warmer reception yet still carrying an unfamiliar challenge.
Saarinen’s new uncharted, though not icy, waters are in the production house community as the director/cameraman looks for a commercialmaking roost after he and partner/executive producer Chuck Sloan decided to close Plum Productions, the company they cofounded 26 years ago (SHOOT, 9/28).
“It’s like one big Rubik’s Cube for me to figure out,” quips Saarinen. “I’m being courted by a bunch of houses–from small shops to big companies with big rosters and reputations. It’s a situation that’s new to me. I’ve been a partner at one place for 26 years and haven’t had the need to assess other production houses. Now I’m trying to judge executive producers, reps, opportunities.”
Saarinen finds it gratifying, though, that he’s had no shortage of suitors. “I think that’s great but it also means I have to do my homework on quite a few companies. Still the bottom line is that I feel reinvigorated. It’s not about the money for me. It’s about the work. And now for the first time I can direct somewhere without the responsibilities of being a partner in a company. And maybe I can even reinvent myself to an extent, showing people I can do a lot more than sheet metal.”
While that sheet metal reputation is well deserved, Saarinen has given new dimension to the automobile genre through his work. Among his latest endeavors, for example, is BMW’s “Feats” for GSD&M, Austin, Texas, which showcases great feats of engineering, including the Gateway Arch in St. Louis (from the director’s father, famed architect Eero Saarinen).
Helping to redefine the automotive ad discipline over the years were such noted Saarinen-helmed projects as: Jeep’s “Snow Covered” (with effects by Digital Domain) for the then Bozell Worldwide, which won the Grand Prix at the ’94 Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival; the lauded documentary series of “Road to Rio” spots for Nissan Pathfinder via TBWAChiatDay, Los Angeles; the Land Rover Discovery “Orbit” fare from GSD&M in which a 180-degree orbiting camera seemingly takes us around the world to depict Land Rover as the most well-traveled vehicle on Earth; and a whimsical Fiat commercial for Italy that thrusts us into a harried, heavily trafficked city commute featuring people who are riding animals.
The latter demonstrates Saarinen’s prowess beyond “sheet metal” into comedy. His affinity for humor was also reflected in Reebok’s “The Pump.” The controversial 1990 spot showed two bungee jumpers leaping off a bridge–one wearing a pair of Nikes, the other an air-pumped-to-fit pair of Reeboks. While the Reebok guy comes back up, all that’s left of his competitor is a pair of sneakers attached to the bungee cord. The Chiat/Day commercial was pulled off the air after about a week but it made an indelible impression, not only generating press but earning a slot in the Clio Hall of Fame.
Other often overlooked comedy credentials for Saarinen include his lensing three of director Albert Brooks’ films (Lost In America, Real Life, Modern Romance). Also in Saarinen’s pedigree are documentary sensibilities rooted in his camera work on the Rolling Stone’s concert film Gimme Shelter, the TV series The Underwater World of Jacques Cousteau and several National Geographic specials. Saarinen’s cinematography earned him an American Society of Cinematography (ASC) designation.
Artistic genes
Saarinen was born into artistry, his father being architect Eero Saarinen and his mother, the sculptress Lily Saarinen. The director’s grandfather was another famed architect, Eliel Saarinen.
As for how he gravitated to filmmaking, Eric Saarinen recalls a conversation his dad had with celebrated designer/architect/creative maven Charles Eames. Eero Saarinen had asked Eames to make a short film showing the airports of the future; the project was linked to Eero’s design and architecture of mobile lounges for Dulles Airport. When Eames screened the film, an impressed Eero Saarinen said, “I should have been a filmmaker.”
Eric Saarinen was a teenager at the time working in his dad’s office. He heard his dad reference filmmaking as an art and something clicked for the younger Saarinen.
“I was interested in the arts but not that much in architecture as a youngster,” relates Eric. “My dad’s mention of film, though, struck a chord for me.”
Eric Saarinen later went to graduate film school at UCLA, where his shooting endeavors included Bobby Kennedy’s California presidential primary victory speech at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles the night he was assassinated and the subsequent Democratic National Convention in Chicago marred by civil unrest and police violence against protestors.
Among Saarinen’s first professional exploits were gigs for film producer Roger Corman. Saarinen, for instance, did second unit camera work on Corman’s Death Race 2000 and served as cinematographer for The Hills Have Eyes, one of horror-meister Wes Craven’s earliest films. Saarinen went on to such projects as lensing the Oscar-nominated short Exploratorium and serving as a director/cameraman on Jimi Plays Berkeley, chronicling legendary guitarist Jimi Hendrix’s concert performance in Berkeley, Calif., which turned out to be his next to last concert engagement before his death.
Former Plum compatriot Sloan says of Saarinen, “Eric is simply a tremendous artist and problem solver. He still loves to make commercials, stories that stand out and cut through the clutter.”
For the moment, while he mulls over his production house options, Saarinen is working through Wild Plum (SHOOT, 10/12), a just launched Venice, Calif.-based shop headed by Plum alumni, executive producer Shelby Sexton and CFO Alisa Allen.
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Review: Writer-Director Andrea Arnold’s “Bird”
"Is it too real for ya?" blares in the background of Andrea Arnold's latest film, "Bird," a 12-year-old Bailey (Nykiya Adams) rides with her shirtless, tattoo-covered dad, Bug (Barry Keoghan), on his electric scooter past scenes of poverty in working-class Kent.
The song's question — courtesy of the Irish post-punk band Fontains D.C. — is an acute one for "Bird." Arnold's films ( "American Honey," "Fish Tank") are rigorous in their gritty naturalism. Her fiction films — this is her first in eight years — tend toward bleak, hand-held verité in rough-and-tumble real-world locations. Her last film, "Cow," documented a mother cow separated from her calf on a dairy farm.
Arnold specializes in capturing souls, human and otherwise, in soulless environments. A dream of something more is tantalizing just out of reach. In "American Honey," peace comes to Star (Sasha Lane) only when she submerges underwater.
In "Bird," though, this sense of otherworldly possibility is made flesh, or at least feathery. After a confusing night, Bailey awakens in a field where she encounters a strange figure in a skirt ( Franz Rogowski ) who arrives, like Mary Poppins, with a gust a wind. His name, he says, is Bird. He has a soft sweetness that doesn't otherwise exist in Bailey's hardscrabble and chaotic life.
She's skeptical of him at first, but he keeps lurking about, hovering gull-like on rooftops. He cranes his neck now and again like he's watching out for Bailey. And he does watch out for her, helping Bailey through a hard coming of age: the abusive boyfriend (James Nelson-Joyce) of her mother (Jasmine Jobson); her half brother (Jason Buda) slipping into vigilante violence; her father marrying a new girlfriend.
The introduction of surrealism has... Read More