NEW YORK– Introducing the second director to take part in the AICP/MOMA director lecture series held in conjunction with the recent AICP national convention here, Jordan Kalfus, chairman of the AICP/MOMA Show, characterized Joe Pytka of PYTKA, Venice, Calif., as "a man with poetry in him." For his part, Pytka credited such a trait to the talented writers he has worked with, especially Hal Riney, president of Hal Riney & Partners, San Francisco.
Introducing a sampling of a body of work that has garnered countless industry awards and a place in the Smithsonian Institution, Pytka kicked off the lecture with a Blitz Beer rancher spot, the first Hal Riney project Pytka worked on and a commercial which the director said helped shape the rest of his career.
"The whole time before [I worked with Riney] I was trying to give an emotional quality to my work and had done a lot of documentary-style commercials, but none of them clicked because I had never worked for a writer as talented as Hal Riney. It sort of opened the floodgates for better work," said Pytka. "One of the joys I’ve had is that for the past 15 years, ever since I met Hal Riney, it started me on a path of working with good people."
The director talked of working diligently with agency creatives. The arguments that sometimes arise– ranging from slight disagreements to heated battles– are all part of the creative process. "It’s all for the good of the product," related Pytka.
Matching talent and script is essential to an effective, believable commercial, said Pytka, pointing specifically to the casting process of two spots from a "Real Life, Real Answers" John Hancock campaign. One spot portrayed a retiring professional football player, which proved to be difficult to cast. "I’ve got to tell you, there is nothing worse than watching a bunch of guys who are upwards of 300 pounds, weeping and talking about retirement," said Pytka. "Here’s a spot that is a work of art on paper. But when the guys do it, you sit there and cringe."
However, after finding the right actor for the commercial, the script was rewritten and turned out to be what Pytka said he considers "the best performance ever seen in sports."
Although the director said he has worked with a lot of athletes, one of his most treasured experiences was going one-on-one with Michael Jordan while filming a Nike Air Jordan commercial. "I had my camera operator set up the shots while I played basketball with Michael Jordan, which I thought was far more important," Pytka quipped. "So much for director’s vision, right?"
Pytka took several other such jabs at himself and his "vision" throughout the lecture, crediting the success of his commercials to the talents of the writers he works with. "The work presented to me is always good because I work with a good group of people," he said.
Pytka said clever advertising is the key. "Look at Bartles & James. They took a product that did not exist and in one year of advertising made it the number-one product in its category," he said. "The truth is the advertising was so good, it took people four or five years to find out that the stuff tasted dreadful."
Considered by many to be a master at capturing the nuances of human behavior on film, Pytka said one of the best ways to accomplish such a feat is by ad-libbing with a hand-held camera, since the best scenes are often unplanned and uncalculated. For Perrier’s "Continents," Pytka described a day in Paris when he and his crew had little time left to get just the right shot. With no shooting permits, the director spotted the perfect couple walking through the park while scouting the location. Unfortunately, the production van carrying the camera had just turned the corner. Pytka and his producer finally caught up with the couple and shot what turned out to be a pivotal scene in the commercial.
"The Perrier spot has to do with spontaneity. It has to do with risk. It has to do with not knowing what you’re going to do and recognizing it when you see it," said Pytka. "We got the shot of this couple looking exactly the way they looked when I first saw them. It’s kind of a miracle and it improved the commercial tremendously. I’ve tried to work like that as much as possible since."
Luck was also on Pytka’s side when shooting the DuPont StainMaster commercial in which a baby in a walker runs amok in an apartment. "I got the board and it had a dog, it had a little kid and it had special effects. All of those are your worst nightmares. We only had two hours with the kid to get all those reactions in, plus we had to get him to run around the room. It was a production nightmare. The editor only had enough footage to cut the spot the way it was," said Pytka.
Despite logistical problems, the commercial turned out to be a winner and was honored on the AICP/ MOMA show reel for advertising concept, and at the Andys and The One Show.
