Phil Harder’s work is greatly influenced by the husband-and-wife directing team of Charles and Ray Eames. According to Harder, the Eames—furniture designers who also made more than 100 short films on a variety of educational themes like how tops spin—created intelligent, inventive films for children that were never condescending.
"Stills Cinema" is Harder’s first effort out of bicoastal Bob Industries, which he recently signed with for commercial representation. It illustrates how users of the HP digital camera can take pictures, then create flipbooks that illustrate their personal stories. The spot is composed of two segments. In the first, "I Am Immune to Gravity," we see a man jumping in the air. Cut to a flipbook that shows the same man spinning around above the ground, basically flying. Harder achieved the effect by taking photos of the man at the height of his individual jumps and assembling them in the flipbook. The second segment, "We Need A Record Deal," shows a band called The Dollyrots performing in a garage. The motion of the flipbook results in what looks like a music video—an appropriate subject for a director who estimates he’s directed hundreds of clips. The HP spot ends with the super: "You make a good story." None of the effects were created in post; instead, hundreds of flipbooks were created for the project.
Harder notes that director Norman McLaren’s film Neighbours inspired the first segment of "Stills Cinema," while a music video project of his from 1997—The Goops’ "Vulgar Appetite"—was the impetus for the second. The time-consuming flipbook technique is not revolutionary, but it produces striking results. "I’m actually more interested in the old-fashioned, pre-digital age of filmmaking like cell animation, and sometimes trick theatrical effects in-camera," says Harder. "I love the look of that—the kind of jerky look of things that aren’t so perfect, versus the smooth flow of digital technology."
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Until recently, the majority of Harder’s directorial projects were music videos. He has maintained his own production company, Harder/ Fuller Films, Minneapolis, with partner Rick Fuller, for nearly 20 years. Harder has directed clips including Foo Fighters’ "Next Year," Liz Phair’s "Why Can’t I," matchbox twenty’s "Mad Season" and Incubus’ "Drive."
Harder’s first spot roost was A Band Apart, Los Angeles, where he stayed from ’98 to ’02. There, he shot commercials for the Gap and Target, as well as music videos, all the while maintaining Harder/Fuller Films. Once the agreement between Harder and A Band Apart ended, the director worked through his own company and continued shooting spots for Target, including the recent "Drummers" out of Peterson Milla Hooks, Minneapolis. In line with Harder’s music video experience, the spot features a drumming duet by Bun E. Carlos of the band Cheap Trick and Torry Castellano (Donna C.) of The Donnas.
The director said that the highly creative work he’s recently seen in commercials inspired him to sign with Bob Industries and shift his focus to spotwork again—but he’ll continue to shoot music videos. In fact, he recently completed "Testing 1, 2, 3" for Barenaked Ladies. The clip features chalkboard animation that is intermittently superimposed on footage of the band members performing. Artist Janet Lobberecht—who is a friend of Harder’s—drew the images on a basic chalkboard, while Harder shot footage of the band. Eventually, the two parts were digitally combined, but the old-fashioned, hand-drawn aspect of the piece comes through. "I think you can detect the hands of the artist or animator or filmmaker," Harder comments.
Although he incorporates effects into his work, Harder says he is interested in more than just inventive techniques. He characterizes his work as "fifty percent old-fashioned filmmaking and storytelling … but then another piece will be full-on effects, [where there’s] hardly anything left of the original filmmaking."
Balancing good techniques with good stories has kept the process interesting for Harder. One of the videos he is most proud of is matchbox twenty’s "Mad Season." Aside from a few split screens meant to increase the appearance of the crowd, the director says that the piece—showcasing the band as they exit a plane amidst screaming fans—was all done in-camera. He described the video as simple cinematography and storytelling.
Another strong influence on Harder’s work is cinematographer Matthew Libatique (Requiem for a Dream; Gothika), with whom the director has collaborated on a number of projects, including "Drummers," and clips for Incubus and matchbox twenty. Harder says he uses Libatique whenever possible because the DP brings a cinematic quality to the work. The two will possibly team up again for what may be Harder’s feature debut, shares the director, who is currently shopping around a screenplay that he wrote based on the book Tuscaloosa: A Novel by W. Glasgow Phillips.
