Not long ago, in this very galaxy, Joe Nussbaum was a lot like the dozens of other recent graduates of the film program at the University of Southern California (USC), Los Angeles. He’d parlayed a college internship into an executive assistant position at Beacon Pictures, Santa Monica. Later, he began producing TV promos for features such as The Rescuers, out of 3-OH!-5 Creative Advertising, North Hollywood … but, well, big deal.
Then came George Lucas in Love, a short film Nussbaum co-wrote and directed, which parodied Shakespeare in Love while exploring the Star Wars director’s days as a USC student circa 1967. If the idea were to cause a stir in Hollywood, mission accomplished.
The eight-minute film, which began making the rounds among agents and studio heads in the spring of ’99, follows Lucas as he struggles with writer’s block. Throughout it we meet characters that obviously inspired such Star Wars cast members as Yoda, Darth Vader and C-3PO. Meanwhile, young Lucas finds his muse in a girl with hair like Princess Leia’s.
In addition to racking up numerous awards on the festival circuit—including best short at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival, Aspen, Colo., and, most recently, the Canal Plus short film award at the Deauville Festival of American Cinema, Deauville, France—George Lucas in Love generated press in the trades and the mainstream media, and, for Nussbaum, meetings around Hollywood. Even George Lucas dropped the director a note to say he liked the film.
"The way it came together is what I always think about," says Nussbaum. "All you can do is try to get the pieces right. But I was so lucky to have such talented people involved. Creatively, no one dropped any balls."
Spot Dreams
Nussbaum found an agent at Beverly Hills-based Endeavor, and managers via Bender-Spink, West Hollywood, and then began sifting through scripts for his feature debut. When he expressed an interest in commercial directing, Endeavor’s Philip Raskind called Lizzie Schwartz, executive producer of bicoastal The Industry, a division of Moxie Pictures, also bicoastal, that reps feature directors in the commercial arena.
"Joe’s a very real, down-to-earth guy with an enthusiasm for doing great work," assesses Moxie principal/executive producer Gary Rose. "But I thought, ‘Great, we’re going to get this thing rocking and he’s going to go off and direct some big movie.’ Thank God, it takes longer to put a movie together than it does to do a commercial."
Indeed, in the past year, two potential feature projects that Nussbaum was interested in fizzled out for typical Hollywood reasons. But in the meantime, he has helmed several ad campaigns, most recently a series of promos for ESPN’s Sunday Night Football. Capitalizing on the director’s penchant for parody, the four spots—"After Dark," "Trivia," "Oysters," and "Drink In Face"—created by Wieden+Kennedy (W+K), New York, spoof the Playboy network’s After Dark programming block. Set during a swanky penthouse party, the ads feature tuxedo-clad ESPN analysts Paul Maguire, Mike Patrick, Joe Theismann and Solomon Wilcots mingling with guests. But the commentators’ actions soon belie the sophisticated setting. In one spot, Patrick makes a pass at a woman, who throws a drink in his face.
The campaign was a coup for Nussbaum, not only because ESPN has a reputation for clever, award-winning ad campaigns, but because the sports network’s promos are what attracted him to advertising in the first place. "It’s kind of like I’m a groupie," he confesses.
At the same time, the director fondly recalls an experience with Nail, a boutique ad agency in Providence, R.I., and its client Alperts furniture. "Furniture isn’t exactly the hippest product," Nussbaum says. "But as soon as I saw the boards and met these hungry, funny, smart guys [at Nail], I knew we would whip out four hilarious spots."
The ads consist of scenarios that illustrate the tag, "Time to buy new furniture?" "Recall" opens on what appears to be a typical den, where an empty recliner faces a television. As a TV news reporter explains that an easy chair is being recalled for a product defect in its spring mechanism, the camera pans up to reveal a guy imbedded in the ceiling. Another spot opens behind an obese man who’s sitting on a couch, talking on the phone. As he explains that he’s house sitting for friends, he stands up, and it becomes apparent that he’s naked. A third ad shows a guy ordering "unfinished" furniture. What arrives is a tree stump.
Nussbaum’s additional spot credits include a Nike ad for the European market (it has also aired in Canada), which was created by W+K, Amsterdam, as well as a Kellogg’s Rice Krispies Treats campaign for the Canadian market out of Leo Burnett Co., Toronto. As for his long-form prospects, a couple of months ago the director signed on to helm How to Eat Fried Worms, based on Thomas Rockwell’s book, for Imagine Entertainment, Nickelodeon Films and Paramount.
"I wasn’t looking for a kids’ movie, but Worms was so much better than the other scripts I was reading," Nussbaum recalls. "So I said, ‘Who cares if it’s for kids?’ In my ideal world, it would turn out to be the type of movie kids will look back on when they’re older. I’d love for it to be a formative movie."
In the meantime, some additional spot assignments are looming. Ultimately, says the director, he is interested in comedy, both long and short format, both heartfelt and heartless: "I’d be interested in either romantic-type comedy or something much broader, as long as there’s a real relationship at the core. If it has that, even if it doesn’t have any heart, I just want something funny. I’d definitely do a mean-spirited commercial or two."µ