One of the first commercials helmed by director Gregory Maya was a spec spot called "Open Your Heart," for the Fresh Air Fund. The ad helped launch Maya’s career as a director, and was honored in the speculative category at the 1996 Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP) Show, at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York.
Shot in black and white, "Open Your Heart" combined kids’ comments about how much they loved spending time in the countryside, with shots of the children jumping in the lake, frolicking with animals and picking flowers. It was just the break that Maya needed. Several months later, bicoastal/international The Artists Company—where he had been working as a producer since ’90—launched him as a director.
In the past year, Maya has directed spots for agencies in the U.S. and Europe, including New Jersey energy provider Public Service Electric & Gas (PSE&G) Company’s "Residential" and "Commercial" via Merkley Newman Harty (MNH), New York; Toyota’s "Mother and Child" via Saatchi & Saatchi LA, Torrance, Calif.; and "Montage" for Germany’s ARD Lottery via McCann-Erickson, Hamburg. He is now working on a multi-spot campaign for International Paper via Messner Vetere Berger McNamee Schmetterer/Euro RSCG, New York.
During his three and a half years as a director, Maya has cultivated a reputation for bringing out the best performances in people. "Without saying this is going to be my style, my style is openly about celebrating the human spirit," he says. "If I could put my finger on what type of work is attracting me in the commercial business and what ends up on the reel, it’s that."
As to how he manages to get such great performances, Maya maintains that it starts with the casting. "I’m attracted to those people who are the most natural and look comfortable in their own skin, and it’s usually there in the casting tapes," he explains. "It’s also about creating a very comfortable atmosphere on set. I don’t think I’m very threatening with actors. My whole thing is collaboration, starting with the agency, the DP, through to the cast, encouraging everyone to do what they do best without feeling threatened or uncomfortable. I also think part of that is being passionate about the project—this starts at the top and seeps down to every level. So if the director is passionate about the commercial, then everyone is able to put in their best effort."
Moving Forward
Maya describes PSE&G’s "Residential" and "Commercial" as a step forward in his career, giving him the opportunity to work on a campaign that was a lot more visually oriented than most of his previous work. The two ads show the range of activities that the energy provider makes possible. For example, "Residential" presents vignettes of energy- and power-related activities. Among the images presented are a man playing a guitar, with the supered message "we make things rock" appearing, followed by "we make things roll," with a factory worker watching bottles moving along an assembly line. The text then changes to "we make things stop," as a TV screen shows a soccer player stopping a goal from being scored. When the super changes to "we make things go," a vehicle-laden street with flashing traffic lights is displayed. When the message becomes "we make things wet," the image is of a boy looking at sea creatures at an aquarium.
Working with a team from MNH, including agency producer Dominic Ferro, art director Rick Rabe and copywriter Sandy Mairs, Maya helped develop the idea, brainstorming on appropriate words and then finding suitable visuals. "The examples ran the whole gamut of moments from small to big, and had to be based on electrical power, so it was a puzzle putting this together," Maya relates. "My production team went through hell with the changes we were coming up with [during the filming]."
Similarly, the director enjoyed working on Toyota Sienna’s "Mother and Child," on which he was also involved from the concept stage. In his pitch, he presented ideas for both the visuals and the script, including a book of images showing mothers with their children. This formed the foundation of the work, which mixed scenes of moms and their kids, with shots of the children asking, "How far would you go to protect your child’s life?" Some of the questions are: "Would you enter a burning building?" "Would you face a charging grisly bear? "Would you drive a minivan?
Recently Maya has been attracting work from Germany, where he has just wrapped another installment in the aforementioned lottery campaign. Centering on the fact that the proceeds from the drawing go to social services, the first spot, "Montage," was filmed at two different institutions. It shows various snippets in the everyday lives of mentally and physically challenged adults and children. Prior to the shoot, Maya spent several days at the centers, looking for that "special something" he could use. Although there was a language barrier—some could not speak at all, while others only spoke German—he chose people who had that certain spirit and enthusiasm for life that he seeks to represent in his work. "The biggest challenge was making everyone feel comfortable—providing a safe environment to play with them, and letting them do what they normally do," recalls Maya. "With the kids and some of the adults, it was creating fun moments. On the day of the shoot, the kids were everywhere, climbing all over me as I was watching the monitors. It was a very free and simple world we created for them, and very much in keeping with the philosophy of the institutions."
Maya—a liberal arts major who graduated in ’78 from Union College, Schenectady, N.Y.—explored several career options before finding his way into directing. These included stints at a publishing house, on a congressional campaign and with a shipping company—a job he took so he could live in Italy. Upon returning to New York in ’85, he worked in Manhattan’s Downtown theatre scene, as an assistant to well-known theatre director John Jesurun. Through contacts made in the theatre, he started exploring commercial production, for a number of years picking up assignments on commercial shoots while continuing in the theatre. Through one of these shoots, he met The Artists Com-pany’s president/executive producer Roberto Cecchini, who after several freelance projects, offered him a staff position as a producer for The Artists Company and its sister house, bicoastal/international The A+R Group, in ’90. Maya began working on storyboards, becoming more involved in spots creatively—and that piqued his interest in directing.
Asked whether he is interested in pursuing other projects such as feature films, Maya responds that his focus right now is advertising. "I love directing; it’s really challenging and it’s about working with people and bringing out the best in them," he says. "I’m not an overnight sensation, but directing is something I’m very patient about, and I’m willing to wait for the right projects. I’ve been really lucky; it’s been a really fruitful three and a half years."µ
