TBWA/Chiat/Day, Dir. Michael Bay, Digital Domain Explore The Power Of Sight
Unseen.
CLIENT
Levi Strauss & Co./Levi"s Red Tab Jeans.
PRODUCTION CO.
Propaganda Films, bicoastal/international. Michael Bay, director; John
Schwartzman, DP; Colin Hickson, VP/commercials division; Roger Zorovich,
executive producer; Karen Rohrbacher, producer. Shot at Sony Pictures
Studios, Culver City, Calif.
AGENCY
TBWA/Chiat/Day, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Lee Clow, creative
director/art director; Rob Siltanen, creative director/copywriter; Duncan
Milner, art director; Jennifer Golub, executive producer; Brooke Bowman,
assistant producer.
EDITORIAL
Nomad Editing Company,
Santa Monica. John Murray, editor; David Anderson,
assistant editor.
POST
Digital Domain, Venice, Calif. Scott Rader, online editor. Company 3, Santa
Monica. Stefan Sonnenfeld, colorist.
VISUAL EFFECTS
Digital Domain, Venice, Calif. Fred Raimondi, visual effects supervisor;
Todd Isroelit, visual effects producer; Allyse Manoff, visual effects
coordinator; Bernd Angerer, animation supervisor; Scott Rader, digital
effects supervisor/lead compositor; Michael Karp, motion control supervisor.
AUDIO POST
POP Sound, Santa Monica. Loren Silber, mixer.
BY KATHY DeSALVO
No, it"s not an episode of the erotic Red Shoe Diaries cable series. But
"Invisible Man," a spot for Levi"s Red Tab Jeans via TBWA/Chiat/Day, Los
Angeles and San Francisco, is definitely risqu for a commercial depicting
a male-female love (lust) story.
Intriguingly, it is an invisible male and femaležcourtesy of Venice,
Calif.-based effects house Digital Domainžthat are featured in the :60
spot, directed by Michael Bay of bicoastal/ international Propaganda Films.
Set to Marvin Gaye"s classic "Let"s Get It On," the ad consists mostly of
foreplay up until the "anticlimatic" ending.
The spot is set at night in a man"s loft apartment, and begins as the
invisible guyžwearing Levi"s jeansžis interrupted from watching sports on
TV by a doorbell. He gets up, knocks a couple of glasses over, grabs a
shirt and tries to clean the place up a bit while his dog looks on
curiously. The invisible man unlocks the door to reveal his invisible
dateža very shapely form wearing a denim jacket, a tight, short sweater and
Levi"s jeans. The two proceed to playfully romp around the apartment. She
straddles him on the kitchen sink, and in the next sequence, he dips her
deeply while dancing. After this romantic pas de deux, the invisible couple
wrestle on the couch. She strips off her top (her cast-off sweater lands on
the guy"s invisible head) and then her jeans, followed by shot of the dog
covering his eyes with his paw.
The female, now visible only by her red shoes, walks into his bedroom. The
guy frantically shucks off his clothes to follow her. But the love play is
interrupted by the doorbell. Clad only in socks, the guy scoots to answer
it. On the other side is an invisible matronly figure wearing a hat and
glasses. "Mom!" the guy cries in dismay. The end super: "Opt. For the
original."
TBWA/Chiat/Day creative director Rob Siltanen, who also wrote the spot,
explained that while he was trying to come up with a concept, he started
doodling a pair of pants. "I thought it might be kind of interesting if
these pants started moving, which gave me the idea of an invisible man,"
said Siltanen. "One of the things I liked about it was the fact [that] I
could do a few things I wouldn"t be allowed to otherwise on television,
like take his clothes off."
The other advantage of using an invisible man, continued Siltanen, was the
potential to broaden the target audience. "Levi"s had done an earlier
campaign that was very targeted to young people," said Siltanen, "but
[there are] also people in that age group who are deserting to other
brands. The invisibility allows just about anybody to put themselves in
those pants."
Bay told SHOOT that he liked the concept of the spot, which he directed
using real actors wearing the clothes over green bodystockings. "I thought
it [would be] unpredictable because there was no emotion in it," said Bay.
"It"s one of those spots where it"s a gamble; it could be very cool or it
could suck. … [When] you don"t have emotionžyou don"t have the eyes to
look at or the facial expressionsžit kind of takes away the human interest.
So … we had to get very animated people."
While "Invisible Man" does stretch the boundaries of what has typically
been allowed in commercials by virtue of the fact that the people are
invisible, Bay noted that some of the seemingly innocuous shots raised
agency concern. Added Bay, "There were conversations like, "You can"t have
the dog on the bed if they"re going to fuck.""
Bay"s DP John Schwartzman (also DP for Bay"s feature films The Rock and
Armageddon) operated a motion control camera system which was "a pain" to
move for each shot, said Bay. He added, "We had to do about four passes for
each shot; if you wanted three takes, you had to do four passes for each
take. And with this agency, they couldn"t decide on anything: [We]"d do
twenty-five shots to get one."
According to Bay, it was a rather disorganized shoot; the agency, he
claimed, was undecided on the spot"s ending, which led to the shooting of
four different versions. Siltanen affirmed that they did have several
endings they wanted to tryžincluding one they had wanted to use in a PSA,
in which the dog pulls a condom packet out of the guy"s jeans. But
ultimately, the "mom" endingžwhich was Bay"s recommendationžworked best for
the spot, said Siltanen.
Digital Domain"s Fred Raimondi, the job"s visual effects supervisor,
explained that his team used a combination of traditional 2-D and "new" 3-D
invisible man techniques. "One of the traditional technical techniques is
to dress people in green and fill in the background where their heads would
be, and we"d have to fill in the backs of the clothing as well. We didn"t
use the green in hopes of pulling a greenscreen; it was more for the fact
that it was a day-glo green and would show us where we needed to rotoscope.
So we ended up rotoscoping each shot."
Two invisible people touching presented a tricky technical challenge, said
Raimondi. The problem is that with two green-body-stockinged heads in close
proximity, as well as intertwined arms and legs, there were instances in
which a hand would cover a piece of clothing that needed to be visible. In
those cases, CG clothes were created to fill in the gaps. The result worked
"like gangbusters," said Raimondi.
Following the two-day shoot, during which 22 motion control set-ups were
done, the spot entered a five-week post phase. "You only do a few jobs in
your career where you don"t wish you could go back and fix something," said
Raimondi. "This was one of those jobs; I was very happy with everything."
***
jsm/music Plants
For Trees Atlanta
CLIENT
Trees Atlanta.
PRODUCTION CO.
Hungry Man, New York. Rick Rabe, director; Dave Morabito, DP; Stephen
Orent, executive producer; Danica Walker, producer. Shot on location in
Atlanta.
AGENCY
Merkley Newman Harty, Atlanta. Rick Rabe, creative director; Chris
Schlegel, creative director/art director; Jay Wallace and Quentin
Shuldiner, copywriters; Danica Walker, broadcast producer.
EDITORIAL
Jump, New York. Barry Stilwell, editor.
POST
Jump. Thomas Ostuni, online editor/type designer; Micah Kirz, colorist.
AUDIO POST
Jump. Thomas Ostuni, mixer.
MUSIC
jsm/music, New York. Raymond Loewy, composer; Joel Simon, executive producer.
THE SPOTS
A campaign for non-profit organization Trees Atlanta promotes awareness and
support for the planting and protection of trees in the greater Atlanta
area. The package, which features picturesque shots of trees along with
type depicting the trees" "deep thoughts," includes two :30 versions of
"When I Grow Up," and the :15s "Global Cooling," "Kids Who Breathe,"
"Parking Lot" and "100 Year Old Tree."
Spots broke in May.
***
Planet Blue Prevents
Blisters For J&J
CLIENT
Johnson & Johnson/Band-Aid Blister Block.
PRODUCTION CO.
The End, Beverly Hills, Calif. Nick Egan, director; Martin Coppen, DP;
Roger Hunt, executive producer; Laura Morris, producer. Shot on location in
Vancouver, B.C.
AGENCY
McCann-Erickson, New York. Irwin Warren, creative director; Peter Friedman,
executive producer; John F. Higgins, producer; Jeanne Ladias, art director;
Sandy Stein, copywriter.
EDITORIAL
Declan Whitebloom, Hollywood, editor.
POST/VISUAL EFFECTS
Planet Blue, Santa Monica, Calif. Milt Alvarez, executive producer; George
Sanchez, producer; Maury Rosenfeld, visual effects supervisor/effects and
compositing; Konstantin Promokhov and Nicholas Hoppe, CGI artists. Company
3, Santa Monica. Dave Hussey, colorist.
AUDIO POST
East Side Audio, New York. Tom Goldblatt, mixer.
MUSIC
Snyder Music, New York. Craig Snyder, composer/arranger.
THE SPOT
In the :15 "Runner," a jogger keeps pace around a lakefront path as a
blister is warded off by the new Band-Aid Blister Block.
Spot broke June 21.
***
Bob "n Sheila"s
For Scoop Away
CLIENT
The Clorox Co./Scoop Away.
PRODUCTION CO.
The A+R Group, bicoastal. David Ramser, director; Toby Irwin, DP; Lori
Lober, executive producer; Brian Kilcullen, line producer. Shot at Raleigh
Studios, Hollywood.
AGENCY
Young & Rubicam, San Francisco. Stephen Creet, creative director; Roger
Harris, executive producer; Wendy Knoll, producer; Tom Peck, art director;
Katie Barney, copywriter.
EDITORIAL
Bob "n Sheila"s Edit World, San Francisco. Sheila Sweeney, editor; Ed
Feldman, assistant editor; Gina LoCurcio, executive producer/producer.
POST
Bob "n Sheila"s Edit World. Joe Wenkoff, online editor/Smoke artist; Eugene
Libadia, Smoke assistant.
AUDIO POST
Transmedia, San Francisco. Scott Greiner, engineer.
SOUND DESIGN
earwax productions, San Francisco. Andy Newell, sound de-signer.
THE SPOTS
In :15 and :30 versions of "Washroom," a cat sitting next to its owner
jumps off the couch and heads to the bathroom. The cat enters the room,
shuts the door and uses the facilities. After the toilet flushes, the
feline opens the door and heads back to the couch. The owner asks the cat,
"Did you wash your hands?" The cat jumps off the sofa and again heads to
the bathroom. A similar scenario is played out in a veterinarian"s office
in the :30 "Vet." The cat heads to the bathroom (the door is marked with a
cat instead of male or female symbol) and shuts the door, as the latch sign
turns from "vacant" to "occupied." After finishing its business, the cat
walks out of the bathroom with toilet paper stuck to its paw. In the :30
"Door," the camera focuses on the door of the bathroom as a cat enters the
room; sound effects inform the viewer that the cat is using the toilet. All
three spots feature a voiceover stating, "Until your cat can do this, the
next best thing is Scoop Away."
Spots broke July 17.
***
525 Studios Networks With Novell
CLIENT
Novell Inc./Novell NetWare Computer Networks.
PRODUCTION CO.
Bruce Dowad Associates, Los Angeles. Bruce Dowad, director; Bojan Bazelli,
DP; Heidi Nolting, executive producer; Leora Glass, producer; Sally
Shrewsberry, production manager. Shot at Universal Studios, Universal City,
Calif.
AGENCY
Young & Rubicam, San Francisco. Stephen Creet, creative director; Roger
Harris, executive producer; Debra Trotz, producer; Chris Dean, art
director; Henry Jo Peterson, copywriter.
EDITORIAL
King Cut, Venice, Calif. Enrique Aguirre, editor; Major Reinhardt,
assistant editor.
POST/VISUAL EFFECTS
525 Studios, Santa Monica. Jenny Bright, post producer; Steve Scott, visual
effects artist; Patti Gannon and Mandy Sorenson, assistant Inferno artists;
Steward Burris, 3-D artist. HD West, Santa Monica. Rob Sciaratta, colorist.
AUDIO POST
RavensWork, Venice, Calif. Robert Feist, engineer.
MUSIC
Elias Associates, bicoastal. Michael Sherwood, arranger; Jonathan Elias,
creative director.
THE SPOT
"Intersection" showcases Novell as a network that deals with each person as
an individual. The :30 consists of a series of tunnel byways with people
whizzing through, symbolizing data crossing the interworkings of an
internet system.
Spot broke Jul
