By Sarah Woodward
For someone who by his own account works "pretty infrequently," director Mark Romanek of bicoastal Anonymous Content makes his time on the job count. Since writing and directing his critically acclaimed feature One Hour Photo, he has helmed lauded videos for the late Johnny Cash ("Hurt") and Jay-Z ("99 Problems," which scored best directing honors at the recent MTV Video Music Awards). On the commercial front, he has directed noteworthy spots for American Express ("Ugly," out of Ogilvy & Mather, New York) and ESPN ("Makeshift," out of Wieden+ Kennedy [W+K], New York), and he recently earned an Emmy nomination for Saturn’s "Door Music," out of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco.
An audio/visual testimonial to the Saturn Ion’s dent-resistant side panels, "Door Music" hurls one thing after another at the car (a football, a bicyclist, shopping carts, etc.), the various impacts creating a rhythmic beat that’s enhanced by a track composed by Dave Baker of Abalone Music, San Francisco. (The Emmy went to Citibank’s "Outfit," out of Fallon, Minneapolis, and directed by Kevin Thomas of Thomas Thomas, London.)
Romanek says the production essentially amounted to "two days of throwing shit at a car. It was fairly hysterical."
But his favorite moment came when he convinced the agency to let him drop bird poop on the vehicle. "They were a little concerned that the client would not find this at all amusing," Romanek notes. Regardless, the crew whipped up a special "bird shit mixture" in a bucket. "The client walked over with a very serious expression," recalls Romanek. "We dripped the concoction onto the car’s rear fender with a turkey baster, and it was pretty convincing. With tremendous trepidation, we all turned to see the client’s reaction. He had a big smile on his face. The shot ended up in the cut."
Editor Robert Duffy of Spot Welders, Venice, Calif., a longtime collaborator of the director’s, cut "Door Music." "He has a totally original editorial mind," observes Romanek. "No question that he’s the secret to most of the success I’ve enjoyed."
Perhaps especially in the case of Saturn, because while the director and editor typically cut projects while holed up in a room together, Romanek was in absentia this time around—he had to go to New York to shoot the Jay-Z video, which was also cut by Duffy, and scored a best editing honor at the MTV Video Music Awards.
Cuts and notes of "Door Music" were traded via phone and e-mail. "Jamie Barrett and the creatives at Goodby are really smart," Romanek says. "They incorporated a lot of my notes, and I was extremely happy with the cut that they generated with Robert. It wouldn’t have been any better if I had been physically in the room with them."
As for the Emmy nomination, Romanek says it’s nice, but not something he worries about too much. His parents are another matter. "[They] get a big kick out of that stuff," he says. "They love to boast to their friends, ‘Oh, by the way, did I happen to mention that my son was nominated for an Emmy?’ "
NEW GROUND
"Door Music" underscores the type of work Romanek is drawn to. Specifically, projects that involve taking risks and an element of truth. When choosing a project, the director uses criteria gleaned from a radio interview with the late director Stanley Kubrick. "In talking about ways to improve the movie business, [Kubrick] used the phrase ‘daring and sincere,’ " Romanek explains. "This struck me very forcefully as the most apt and concise description of what makes something good, so it’s become a sort of mantra. If I get a board or a script, I ask myself, ‘Have I seen this before? Are they willing to break new ground here?’ And then I ask, ‘Is the message behind this sincere? Does it feel truthful to me? Or is this the usual load of venal, trite, seen-it-before bullshit?’ Usually, like most things, the truth is somewhere in the middle. I’m not saying one can achieve this ideal with every spot or video, but … it’s something to aim for."
For ESPN’s "Makeshift," part of the "Without Sports" campaign from W+K, the aim was to keep sentimentality—and Nike comparisons—at bay. "At several junctures those very words were used: ‘Let’s not turn this into an anthem spot,’ " Romanek reports. The spot shows a variety of pick-up style sports sequences, where kids use what’s on hand—trees, laundry baskets, chalk—to create goals and define the field of play. "We knew we didn’t want it to be at all sentimental," Romanek continues, "and I think we did successfully avoid that, but it just sort of became what it became. There’s a sweetness and a hint of nostalgia to the idea that’s hard to get around."
A certain amount of daring is also evident in Romanek’s recent Acura spot, "Dance," out of Rubin Postaer and Associates, Santa Monica. "I applaud them for taking such a big technical risk," says Romanek of the agency. "The boards described a series of shots where the cars drive in impossibly close synchronization. Save for one interior shot, the entire spot was generated in the computer at Digital Domain [Venice, Calif.]—the car, terrain, sky, interactive elements like water droplets and wet roads, everything. I’m pretty sure that’s not been done before—at least not with the intention of having the end result look as photo-real as the technology and time will allow. It took about twenty-five people almost four months to generate these shots."
Romanek describes the end result as a dark, moody, tough-looking spot accompanied by a hard-core track by Alec Empire, formerly of the band Atari Teenage Riot. "It doesn’t really look like any other Acura spot they’ve done," he says, "and if it’s well received, it might alter the way these types of spots are created. No more helicopter rigs in Venezuela, waiting for the perfect light, etc."
In his recent music videos, Romanek has also taken risks. His "99 Problems" clip for Jay-Z features a haunting sequence in which the rapper is gunned down. Meanwhile, Cash’s "Hurt" is moving in other ways—the clip is in many ways the swan song of a legendary musician who has arrived at the sunset of his life and career. The candid video pairs archival footage with images of Cash, his failing health apparent, and the Cash Museum, which likewise shows the ravages of time. Romanek, a longtime fan of the musician’s, offered to direct the video for free, and says he "probably would’ve paid them to let me make this particular video." As it happened, the clip "helped confer so much attention on the album that [producer] Rick Rubin was gracious enough to present me with a little bonus check. … It was an extremely kind gesture."
It was in the clips arena that Romanek first built his reputation. His credits include videos for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Madonna, Nine Inch Nails, David Bowie, Lenny Kravitz, Fiona Apple, Beck, Linkin Park, No Doubt and Macy Gray. But it was 2002’s One Hour Photo that broadened his repertoire, particularly in commercials. "I think [the film] gave agencies a certain confidence in hiring me for the smaller, more human spots that I prefer to do," Romanek says. "The video work I’d done tended to be a little more flashy and in-your-face and visual, which—to me—is often the agenda of a rock or pop video. But I like spots that whisper instead of scream. So I think One Hour Photo helped me get those boards."
Perhaps comedy will be the director’s next frontier. Though subtly amusing moments appear in Romanek’s work, he has yet to tackle the laugh-out-loud variety. "I’m sure people who interact with me fleetingly might think of me as a very serious person," he remarks. "It takes a long time for me to reveal myself to people. But my close friends—all three of them—will tell you that I can be pretty fucking funny. I’m drawn to very dry comedy. I’d love to do comedy work, but of course the funniest spots are always presented as drama. The situations must be treated as entirely real. Whenever someone tries to be ‘funny’ or go for the laugh, it almost always falls flat."
One Hour Photo has also afforded the director new opportunities in the feature world. Several longform projects are in development, but Romanek says his next feature project will likely be a film based on Philip Gourevitch’s book A Cold Case, starring Tom Hanks. As the title suggests, the book is about a detective who reopens a three-decade-old murder case. Romanek expects to shoot the film this winter in New York; the title will probably change.
As for his long-term goals, the director says he doesn’t think about that much. Asked where he’d like to be in 10 years, he says, "I don’t know—sipping wine in my villa on the Mediterranean with my lovely wife Brigette? All I need is the villa."Z
Rom-Com Mainstay Hugh Grant Shifts To The Dark Side and He’s Never Been Happier
After some difficulties connecting to a Zoom, Hugh Grant eventually opts to just phone instead.
"Sorry about that," he apologizes. "Tech hell." Grant is no lover of technology. Smart phones, for example, he calls the "devil's tinderbox."
"I think they're killing us. I hate them," he says. "I go on long holidays from them, three or four days at at time. Marvelous."
Hell, and our proximity to it, is a not unrelated topic to Grant's new film, "Heretic." In it, two young Mormon missionaries (Chloe East, Sophie Thatcher) come knocking on a door they'll soon regret visiting. They're welcomed in by Mr. Reed (Grant), an initially charming man who tests their faith in theological debate, and then, in much worse things.
After decades in romantic comedies, Grant has spent the last few years playing narcissists, weirdos and murders, often to the greatest acclaim of his career. But in "Heretic," a horror thriller from A24, Grant's turn to the dark side reaches a new extreme. The actor who once charmingly stammered in "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and who danced to the Pointer Sisters in "Love Actually" is now doing heinous things to young people in a basement.
"It was a challenge," Grant says. "I think human beings need challenges. It makes your beer taste better in the evening if you've climbed a mountain. He was just so wonderfully (expletive)-up."
"Heretic," which opens in theaters Friday, is directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, co-writers of "A Quiet Place." In Grant's hands, Mr. Reed is a divinely good baddie — a scholarly creep whose wry monologues pull from a wide range of references, including, fittingly, Radiohead's "Creep."
In an interview, Grant spoke about these and other facets of his character, his journey... Read More