By Robert Goldrich

Though she hasn’t helmed a documentary in a number of years, Joanna Bailey of Bare Films, London, still has the observational skills essential to success in that discipline as evidenced by “Couples,” her emotionally moving Cancer Research UK spot for AMV BBDO, London.
    A series of couples first talks about being told that a loved one–a wife, a mom, a grandfather, a daughter–has cancer. The couples–comprised of the husband and cancer stricken wife, the daughter and her diagnosed mom, the grandson and his granddad, a mother and her daughter–share how they felt upon hearing the news. Each couple is seated on its own couch in separate settings.
    Hearkening back to that difficult time is highly emotional for each couple. In one, the grandson and his granddad don’t say a word, moved to tears, and underscoring how articulate silence can be.
    But each couple then happily notes in a continued montage fashion that thanks to Cancer Research UK, each patient has recovered. They affirm, though, that much more still needs to be done–at which point we see a woman sobbing, seated alone on a couch, having lost a loved one to cancer.
    “Couples” delivers a simple, direct, poignant message which rings true, even with the constraints of some copy that was scripted so that the couples collectively complete sentences as the camera take us from one to the next.
    Bailey and her colleague culled down from originally some 120 people to this handful of real-life couples who have faced the adversity of cancer.
    “There was a definite script but the agency allowed me to go off script, which helped to make the scripted material all the more impactful,” related Bailey. “These weren’t actors. It was important we let them articulate exactly how they felt…The agency gave me the flexibility to substitute for those lines what people said, a person’s glance over to a family member, even the silence of the 11-year-old boy. When we interviewed him, he just said, “I don’t remember. I don’t remember.” He was too young back when he heard of his grandfather’s cancer to maybe fully understand, to put his feelings into words. He just started to cry on camera. He got in touch with how painful he felt back when he heard about his granddad. To us he was being immediate with his emotions yet at the same time trying hard to be brave when recollecting that difficult moment.”
    Bailey observed that as a director she wanted to do justice to each couple while not exploiting their emotions. “It’s a delicate balancing act–facing cancer is so emotional. And in the case of the woman at the end of the spot, her daughter had died just a year ago. The grief is so profound.”
    Two years earlier, Bailey had directed her first Cancer Research UK spot featuring individuals. This time she gravitated towards couples, adding to the poignancy. The first successful go-around with the client and AMV BBDO–the productive working relationship they established–helped, she said, to nurture the realism and immediacy of emotion captured for “Couples.” This latest spot offered another family coupling as well in that it was shot by DP Ben Smithard, BSC, who is Bailey’s husband (and profiled in this issue’s Cinematographers and Cameras Series).
    Conducive to capturing people being natural was “a tiny crew that went about in a van to meet the couples and film them,” said Bailey. “We didn’t want to stand out. We wanted to be small and nimble, hopefully getting people to forget they were on camera and just convey their emotions.”

Documentary roots    A native of Ireland, Bailey moved to London in 1990, working as a researcher and then an assistant producer on documentaries. She started directing on her own in ’95, helming projects for the BBC and Britain’s Channel 4. For the latter, she directed the well-received documentaries Geisha, Naked Nashville, and Blood and Money. The latter focuses on city boys in Brooklyn who engage in white-collar boxing.
    While interviews and the spoken word were key contributors to the success of all three documentaries, revealing yet understated camerawork and physical details help to shed light on the people involved. A stoic geisha through her physicality and slight gestures conveys innermost thoughts that she is trained to conceal.
    “I’ve felt in the U.K. that there’s been a dumbing down of the TV documentary–with narration telling you what you’re seeing, not giving credit to the observational powers of viewers,” said Bailey. “It’s what caused me to pull out of documentaries and focus more on commercials starting several years ago.”

Short-form segue via Nashville    It was Naked Nashville that proved to be a catalyst thrusting Bailey into shorter form fare. Pop singer George Michael saw Naked Nashville which prompted him to seek out Bailey to direct the music video for his remake of the Police hit “Roxanne.” This clip got her a slot on the directorial roster of production house Serious Pictures, which brought her into the commercialmaking arena.
    She has since gone on to establish herself in the advertising marketplace, primarily in the U.K. with work for such clients as British newspaper The Independent, the BBC, and the U.K.’s Central Office of Information. Some brief representation years back in the U.S. via an indie rep firm which had a relationship with Serious garnered Bailey some opportunities such as campaigns for Nike via Wieden+Kennedy, Portland, Ore., and the New York City Board of Education for TBWAChiatDay, New York. The latter coaxed believable performances from real educators and students in NYC’s public school system.
    Meanwhile the Nike work was part of a “Dear Mexico” campaign, which included mini-profiles titled “Big Sister,” “Kitchen,” “Kick Boxing” and “Swimmer.” The ads, which showed women engaged in different sports, targeted Mexico’s female population. “Swimmer,” for example, provided visually engaging images of a woman doing her pool laps with an all consuming intensity.
    Bailey said she would like to regain stateside representation so she could continue to explore and bring ad concepts to life for the American market. She added that she would even entertain stateside documentary opportunities under the right circumstance.

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