A :60 television commercial with more than 15,000 extras? Who could afford them? "Digital extras" come a lot cheaper and no one knows that better than Steve Beck of Industrial Light+Magic Commercial Productions, L.A. and San Rafael, Calif. Beck has directed five effects-heavy spots for a First Union Bank campaign promoting its financial services via Publicis & Hal Riney, San Francisco.
One of the ads, "Launch," depicts the complex world of finance as a creepy, surreal city full of risk, danger and thousands of virtual extras. By contrast, the ad represents financial order as a Wizard of Oz-like skyline dominated by a towering First Union building bathed in sunlight. The sunny image is accompanied by the tagline, "For a new perspective of the financial world, come to the mountain called First Union. Or, if you prefer, the mountain will come to you."
Beck says the ominous cityscape image "was the touchstone for the rest of the campaign. We kept going back to it for its scope, cinematic impact and dramatic revelation. That particular scene was intended to extrapolate what we see in our common-day occurrences. It was pulled from sections of San Francisco and then we embellished it and came up with something hyper-real."
The First Union campaign, with its apocalyptic urban chaos and monolithic skyscraper, has been compared by some observers to the ruthless imagery and Darwinistic notions of Ayn Rand’s infamous novel The Fountainhead.
How did Beck, a former visual effects art director, create the complicated spots? "There’s always several ways to skin a cat. When we looked at this project originally, it was proposed by the agency to be completely CGI," says Beck. He explains that using only computer-generated imagery would have been too costly and time-consuming. Instead, live-action, motion control and blue screen photography, as well as computer graphics and digital mattes, were used to conjure the city.
"All the freeways were computer graphics elements. The guy in the foreground is a blue screen element that was shot on a stage with motion control. The buildings beyond the original foreground pieces were added on as digital matte paintings. Digital matte work actually extended quite a bit of this campaign’s reality. I think it was probably the most effective tool we had," says Beck.
Another spot in the campaign, "Noise," which promotes investment services, is a variation on "Launch." Over 200 TVs were used as part of a live-action set for the commercial. Why not just create "digital TVs"? Since the televisions appear in several shots, it was "cheaper to either rent the TVs or purchase the televisions than it was to deal with them on a post level. We try to get as much in-camera as possible," the director explains.
When Beck was first presented with the First Union project, there were no storyboards, only a script. "We entered into a pre-conceptualization phase initially to find the place, to get our arms around what it means, what it looks like, because we were creating a world unto itself," he says. It took three months to nail everything down, including what the signage would look like and how the traffic would flow. The plan was presented to the client and it was a go.
Comic Relief
Beck doesn’t always work in a high-tech realm. At times, the director definitely deals with old-fashioned reality. A case in point is Beck’s work on "Runaway Pipe," which was aired during last year’s Super Bowl, and was created for Primestar, a satellite television provider via Adler Boschetto Peebles & Partners, New York.
The comic ad shows a man carefully polishing his prized Ford Mustang. When he spots a runaway cement column rumbling towards him, he apparently tries to drive the car out of harm’s way. Then we realize he’s used the auto as a shield to protect his beloved satellite dish.
"We actually built that pipe full-size. We had five guys pushing it up and down the street." Of course, the push rod was removed in post. And the wrecked car? "We took the forklift that was used for loading and unloading the pipe and ran it into the car at 35 miles per hour. Again, it’s using your tools wisely," explains Beck.
Beck graduated in ’81 from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, where he studied graphics and illustration. "I took one film class and kind of failed it," he says. Unlike many of his classmates, who pursued print work, Beck moved into the world of moving imagery, getting a job creating television logos at Silver Cloud Productions, Burbank. "Because it was a small facility, you were required to do everything and anything that had to do with production work. There wasn’t any support staff. You learned everything quickly," says Beck.
In the mid-80s, Beck worked as a commercial director for now defunct Robert Abel & Associates, then went on to become a freelance visual effects producer for Jacobs & Gerber, Los Angeles, an advertising agency that specialized in doing on-air broadcast packages. Beck’s next stop was ILM.
Beck, who was visual effects art director on films such as The Abyss and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, says that feature work "was one of the alluring factors about ILM at the time I came on board. Besides managing the art department, I was able to get my hands on a few feature opportunities." But he wasn’t satisfied "babysitting" other people’s creative work. He decided he would rather "do commercials where I could still exercise my creativity." ILM Commercial Productions opened shop in ’89 and Beck jumped at the chance to get back in the director’s chair with the new division.
Directing, for Beck, doesn’t end when the shoot is wrapped. "Every element has a certain impact on the overall image so you’re still directing while you’re in post." Referring to effects-heavy projects, Beck says, "You have to have an inherent knowledge of this stuff. It’s not just ‘I’ll come up with this grand vision and hopefully somebody else is going to figure it out.’ "
Beck’s knowledge will come in handy very soon: He’s about to direct more spots for First Union’s continuing campaign.
