After making his feature directorial debut on Touchstone Pictures’ just-released Coyote Ugly, director David McNally is ready to revisit the commercial world he left behind 18 months ago.
Repped for spots in the U.S. by bicoastal Omaha Pictures, McNally said he’s learned much from his feature experience. For one, the process convinced him of the importance of working with material that’s "unlike anything you’ve seen before."
Coyote Ugly, which debuted Aug. 4, fit the bill. Produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, it centers on a New Jersey girl named Violet (Piper Perabo), who moves to New York to pursue a songwriting career. But her aspirations get sidetracked when she gets a job at Coyote Ugly, a popular nightclub whose sexy, sassy female employees entertain but take no guff from male patrons. (The movie was inspired by a GQ article about Coyote Ugly, a real bar in New York’s East Village).
"I was familiar with some of these bars in New York City which have been dubbed ‘urban saloons,’ like Red Rock West, and Hogs ‘N Heifers," said McNally. "They’re these sort of kick-ass, women-in-control saloons. They’re quite intriguing … there’s this odd sense of empowerment. These bars are owned and run by women, and the women are very much in control of the crowd, the men in the crowd. We called it this post-feminist feminism, where it’s OK for women to get drunk, party, and even use their sexuality in a way that they’re comfortable with. [It’s an atmosphere] where it doesn’t matter what you do and you don’t care what other people think. There’s quite a liberating feeling about the whole thing, I think."
McNally won the feature job, in part, because of a Budweiser spot called "Lobster" that he directed for DDB Chicago, which premiered on the ’99 Super Bowl. Bruckheimer had seen and liked the Bud spot that depicts a lobster using a bottle of Bud to escape its fate in a boiling pot, and called in the director’s reel. Impressed with McNally’s work, Bruckheimer sent over the script.
"Apparently I was one of a number of commercial directors he had targeted," related McNally. "Everybody got to present their versions of the movie, and I guess he liked
mine. I read the script and it certainly had its challenges. It represented an opportunity to make a movie that had a lot of entertainment value. Clearly, it had a marketable premise … [and] it had a love story for the girls and hot chicks for the guys."
Shooting began in August ’99, following an extensive casting process that saw thousands of women auditioning for the role of Violet. "I knew from commercial casting that you always seem to know who’s good for a role when they walk in the door," said McNally. "But this was a little added pressure because the person would have to carry a movie. [Perabo] had a realness that resonated with me. She wasn’t afraid to be goofy, wacky or funny."
What he was least prepared for, continued McNally, was the amount of work entailed in directing a film. "The one thing that really took me aback was how physically challenging it is, because it is a long haul." He recalled that, as a commercial director, he didn’t think his schedule could be any busier. But he was wrong. While 10 consecutive shoot days was the longest period of time he’d shot in the spot world, principal photography for Coyote Ugly lasted for 62 days straight.
In addition to the regular rigors of shooting were required tasks such as watching dailies and attending meetings to detail the shots and discuss scripts for the next day’s shoot. "Sometimes," reported McNally, "I’d then go home and have to revise storyboards until very early in the morning and then show up for a 7 a.m. call. In some cases, new pages would show up that morning. Sometimes the storyboards held, and other times you had to think on your feet."
McNally said it was challenging to adjust to the number of revisions Coyote Ugly underwent during pre-production and shooting-revisions that served to tweak the ending and tie up loose ends for some characters. Script doctors, including actress/scribe Carrie Fisher and director Kevin Smith (Clerks, Chasing Amy) were brought in, and writer Jeff Nathanson provided the final clean-up.
"The movie got better each time these revisions came in," said McNally, adding that Bruckheimer’s philosophy was that you can keep improving the movie right up until you ship the print. "But it became around 60 days of struggling to get three or four hours sleep a night, and it takes its toll. By the end of it, I actually thought I might have been insane. I still don’t know that I’ve recovered."
When principal photography wrapped shortly before last Christmas, McNally had a brief break and took the opportunity to take on an ad assignment: a Budweiser spot called "Submarine," for DDB Chicago (SHOOT "Top Spot of the Week," 4/14/00). "It almost seemed like a vacation," said McNally of the Bud production. "It was a difficult job as well, but it was nice to go through the process in an abbreviated version again."
Upon returning from the holiday break, McNally found himself dealing with more revisions. They did two additional re-shoots during postproduction, he recalled. "We had to cut things, re-cut things and then screened it for people. It was a pretty grueling process."
But one surprise McNally found was that a feature director drives the process much more than a commercial director does. Whereas spot directing often seems an exercise in directing by committee, McNally said, for this project he was strongly relied upon to "rally the troops" and give guidance to a group of people-many of whom have never before worked together.
"You almost have to think more like a producer," related McNally. "You can’t take for granted that there’s going to be somebody looking after all that stuff; you really have to take the reins and steer the ship."
His knowledge won’t go to waste; McNally has already signed on to direct another feature, Down and Under, an action comedy for Castle Rock Entertainment that Bruckheimer will also produce. Now in script development, the story centers around two childhood friends from Brooklyn who become caught up in a mob-related debt and end up in the Australian outback trying to retrieve a mobster’s package. "It’s a classic fish-out-of-water story, sort of like Crocodile Dundee in reverse," explained McNally.
For the moment, however, McNally is looking forward to resuming his commercial directing career. "It’s time to go back," he related.
