Few spots receive Emmy nominations; fewer still earn presidential endorsements. But this year, Electronic Data Systems’ "Cat Herders" garnered both. "There was a speech that Clinton was giving, and in the middle, he said that the EDS commercial with the cowboys and the cats was his favorite commercial from [this] year," marvels John O’Hagan, who directed the spot out of bicoastal/international hungry man via Fallon, Minneapolis. "To see something like that—to realize that your commercials are making an impact outside the industry—that’s an exciting thing."
"Cat Herders" has also made quite an impact within the industry. Ever since its debut during the 2000 Super Bowl, the spot has been scooping up accolades, ranking within the top 10 in USA Today’s 12th Annual Ad Meter Poll and earning numerous rave reviews. Nonetheless, O’Hagan says he was thrown for a bit of a loop by the Emmy nod. "I was in the hungry man office, and they told me about the nomination," he recalls. "I didn’t even realize they gave Emmys to commercials, so I was really surprised." (The commercial Emmy Award for ’99 went to Nike’s "Morning After," directed by Spike Jonze of bicoastal Satellite via Wieden+Kennedy, Portland, Ore.)
O’Hagan is proud of "Cat Herders," which illustrates EDS’ ability to manage complex computer systems in a memorably epic and hilarious way. In the ad, weather-beaten cowboys with alarmingly scratched faces speak to the camera about their chosen profession: herding cats. The testimonials are interspersed with sweeping, cinematic shots of the cat-pokes in action, driving thousands of felines across the rugged plains and suffering through such occupational hazards as allergies and cat hair on their clothing.
O’Hagan, who studied films directed by famed Western director John Ford to prepare for the shoot, says he wanted the spot to "feel very real." That meant using real cats—and real cowboys. "Luckily, I was working with great creatives," says O’Hagan alluding to the Fallon team, which included president/ executive creative director David Lubars, copywriter Greg Hahn and senior art director Dean Hanson. "They were all for [casting] real people. We cast in five different cities. These casting agents would bring in cowboys who literally were coming off of cattle drives. … They’d walk in, in their chaps, totally dusty."
While many of the cowboys had never been in front of a camera before, some proved to be naturals. "They were instantly able to get into character," says O’Hagan. "Basically, all they were doing was talking about their lives, and substituting the word ‘cat’ for ‘cow.’ " After selecting a group of cattle herders "peppered with a couple of actors that looked like cowboys," O’Hagan took his cast, crew and 60 cats to Tejon Ranch, which is located about 70 miles north of Los Angeles.
O’Hagan encouraged his actors to ad-lib. "We were going for emotion in these guys—the feeling that it was coming from their hearts," he explains. "So, we would just let them go. We’d throw questions at them, and they’d respond. Or we’d feed them some lines that had been written, and tell them to put them into their own words."
O’Hagan says that most of "Cat Herders" is, indeed, in the actors own words. "Personally, I love improv," he relates. "I love letting actors go, as long as what they’re saying is making sense in relation to the script. I often find that when actors are allowed to improv, they give you moments that are priceless."
One such moment didn’t make the final cut, but O’Hagan remembers it well: "There was one guy with an eye patch on. He was getting really worked up, without going over the top. He was saying, ‘You don’t choose to be a cat herder. Cat herding chooses you.’ And he actually had a tear in his eye."
While CGI done by Sight Effects, Venice, Calif., drastically increased their numbers, the cats did their own stunts. "We had to run them and reset them and run them again, doing multiple passes with motion control," O’Hagan explains. "This one cat saved us a lot. If we couldn’t get the other cats to do something, we’d bring him out. He’d sit on a horse, he’d run through water. He’d do anything."
Squirrelly Humor
"Cat Herders," which resembles a classic Western, is a far cry from O’Hagan’s first commercial: "Arctic Ground Squirrel," for Dial-a-Mattress, through Dweck & Campbell, New York (now dweck!). The ad features a sarcastic man in a squirrel costume greeting Dial-a-Mattress deliverymen at his suburban home. He instructs them where to place the mattress for his winter-long hibernation, alternately yelling at his nagging wife. As different from "Cat Herders" as it looks, "Arctic Ground Squirrel," too, exemplifies O’Hagan’s sharp, highly visual wit. And, while it may not have won presidential praise or an Emmy nomination, the spot did score kudos from, of all people, Howard Stern on his radio program. Oh, and it also scored a Gold Lion at Cannes in ’98.
Winning such an honor for his very first spot was quite a shock for O’Hagan, who says he "really didn’t expect to go into commercials." By the time he signed with hungry man, he had already achieved success with the feature-length documentary Wonderland, which focused on the residents of Levittown, N.Y. Initially made when O’Hagan was in film school at New York University, Wonderland was eventually screened at the Sundance Film Festival. He
