Gold Lion bookends
By Robert Goldrich
Thirteen years ago, director Peter Nydrle’s Harley Davidson spot “Birds” won a Gold Lion from the Cannes International Advertising Festival. This year, he earned a second Cannes Gold Lion–for the Chambers Hotel “Video Art Piece,” an inspired 30 minutes, with a voyeuristic bent, featuring interiors of guest rooms and guests’ recreated private moments in what plays like an edgy security camera surveillance video.
The Gold Lions bookending either side of 13 years underscore Nydrle’s longevity as a director. He continues to work out of his West Hollywood-based NYDRLE studio.
The two Lions also reflect a difference as well as similarities which provide food for thought as to how the business has evolved–and at the same time not changed all that much.
“Minneapolis is a good place for me,” quipped Nydrle, noting that both Lion-winning projects came out of Minneapolis agencies–“Birds” from Carmichael Lynch, the “Video Art Piece” from Barrie D’Rozario Murphy (BDM).
The other more significant common bond between the Gold Lion honorees, though, he continued, is simply that “the idea drives the project. Good ideas work–as a director, you just have to make sure you don’t blow it.”
Clearly, Nydrle didn’t blow it as evidenced by the Cannes Gold Lion as well as assorted other kudos that the Chambers Hotel piece garnered, including a 2009 AICP Show honor in the Next Experiential category.
Yet the big difference between the Gold Lion-winning work spaced 13 years apart is the content form–Harley Davidson’s TV :30 and the 30-minute Chambers Hotel piece. For the latter, Nydrle shot some 14 hours of material, deploying a mix of actors, hotel staff and real people who happened by.
“You have to be open to all the new forms emerging,” affirmed Nydrle. “My film doesn’t look any better if three or fifty people are standing behind me. You adapt to the needs of the project. When you are presented a great idea, you have to be smart enough not to say, ‘Oh, it has a small budget, forget about it.’ Otherwise I wouldn’t have done this work for Chambers and BDM.”
Nydrle observed that the Chambers Hotel project had “the lowest budget I’ve encountered in my entire professional life, except for when I was starting out in Czechoslovakia.” Yet despite the dollar constraint, he immediately saw the value of what BDM had crafted and entrusted him to direct.
Strategic underpinning
While the upscale Chambers Hotel in Minneapolis had healthy room occupancy, its bar/restaurant area needed an infusion of customers. Hence the notion of having hot new video entertainment generating a buzz that could make the bar an in-demand venue. While the material was staged, the action had a voyeuristic appeal, leaving viewers to wonder if what they were witnessing was real or not.
BDM co-president/executive creative director Stuart D’Rozario explained that the Chambers Hotel is a cool hangout which exhibits world renowned art. “It’s part of the Minneapolis art tour so to speak–a collection of edgy, contemporary art from star artists. We thought wouldn’t it be cool to do something on the two TV screens in the bar that felt like edgy art. The fake security camera feel starts out quite mundane. Nothing happens by design, it’s quite boring. But then you see a few things room to room that pull you in, hints of activity you shouldn’t be seeing. Some people complained, others have approached the hotel about buying the video as though it were another valued art piece in the hotel. But the bottom line is that more traffic was being driven to the bar and those who came stayed considerably longer than they had before. It became a destination unto itself.
“It all comes down to the relevance of the entertainment to the advertiser’s brand,” continued D’Rozario. “For another hotel, this would have been a totally wrong idea.”
The aforementioned 14 hours of footage is a rich reservoir from which to cut other 30-minute versions of security cam fare. Nydrle recently offered a suggestion to agency and client–to intersperse live camera cut-ins of people actually in the bar, so they’ll think or at least wonder if indeed all the content they’re viewing consists of real-time actual happenings throughout the hotel.
Being able to chime in with ideas and different approaches, said Nydrle, is easier when you are working with an agency that promotes and has creative freedom. You walk into the BDM offices and you know you’re in such a place. It’s an inspirational workplace, just a great agency.”
Nydrle himself is an inspiration for directors who aspire to lengthy tenures in a profession which at times seems to have the life span of an NFL running back. “Staying relevant and busy as a director is pretty daunting. I’m glad that I’ve been able to attract projects that have been able to strike a responsive chord with people over the years. You have to remember that great ideas can come from anywhere–and you have to be open to them.”
Review: Malcolm Washington Makes His Feature Directing Debut With “The Piano Lesson”
An heirloom piano takes on immense significance for one family in 1936 Pittsburgh in August Wilson's "The Piano Lesson." Generational ties also permeate the film adaptation, in which Malcolm Washington follows in his father Denzel Washington's footsteps in helping to bring the entirety of The Pittsburgh Cycle — a series of 10 plays — to the screen.
Malcolm Washington did not start from scratch in his accomplished feature filmmaking debut. He enlisted much of the cast from the recent Broadway revival with Samuel L. Jackson (Doaker Charles), his brother, John David Washington (Boy Willie), Ray Fisher (Lymon) and Michael Potts (Whining Boy). Berniece, played by Danielle Brooks in the play, is now beautifully portrayed by Danielle Deadwyler. With such rich material and a cast for whom it's second nature, it would be hard, one imagines, to go wrong. Jackson's own history with the play goes back to its original run in 1987 when he was Boy Willie.
It's not the simplest thing to make a play feel cinematic, but Malcolm Washington was up to the task. His film opens up the world of the Charles family beyond the living room. In fact, this adaptation, which Washington co-wrote with "Mudbound" screenwriter Virgil Williams, goes beyond Wilson's text and shows us the past and the origins of the intricately engraved piano that's central to all the fuss. It even opens on a big, action-filled set piece in 1911, during which the piano is stolen from a white family's home. Another fleshes out Doaker's monologue in which he explains to the uninitiated, Fisher's Lymon, and the audience, the tortured history of the thing. While it might have been nice to keep the camera on Jackson, such a great, grounding presence throughout, the good news is that he really makes... Read More