Hungry Man's plate is full with half of this year's portion of primetime spot Emmy nominations. The production company scored two of the four nominations in the Outstanding Commercial category–one for Grey Poupon's "The Chase" directed by Bryan Buckley for Crispin Porter+Bogusky; the other for Google Chrome's "Jess Time" helmed by Nanette Burstein for Google's Creative Lab.
Meanwhile Wieden+Kennedy too is on a roll, one which extends well beyond just this year's nominations. The agency earned a nod this time around for Nike's "Jogger" directed by Lance Acord of Park Pictures. "Jogger" puts W+K in the running for its fifth consecutive primetime commercial Emmy Award win. Last year, W+K's "Best Job" for Procter & Gamble won the Emmy. The prior three W+K Emmy winners were Coca-Cola's "Heist" in 2009, Old Spice Body Wash's "The Man Your Man Could Smell Like" in 2010, and Chrysler's Super Bowl commercial "Born of Fire" in 2011.
Rounding out this year's field of commercial nominees is Canon's "Inspired" directed by Nicolai Fuglsig of MJZ for Grey New York.
Normally the Outstanding Commercial category has five nominations. However, this year there was a three (or more)-way tie for fifth place in the voting tabulations which resulted in the Television Academy opting to go with a total of four nominations.
Oscar twist
In a bit of an awards-centric twist, one of this year's Emmy-nominated spots debuted on the Oscars telecast: Grey Poupon's "Chase." The 2013 ad begins in the same way as the original "Pardon Me" commercial of some 16 years earlier–an aristocratic English gent is being chauffeured in the countryside when another car pulls alongside at a stop. The back window rolls down and a second man asks in a snooty accent, "Pardon me, would you have any Grey Poupon?"
The first man obliges with a "but of course" and hands him a jar out the window.
However in this latest version, that familiar end scene is just the beginning as the second car speeds off without returning the mustard. A wild car chase ensues, replete with pyrotechnics reminiscent of an action-adventure movie.
While "Chase" is simpatico with Hungry Man's reputation for comedy, Google Chrome's "Jess Time" represents a departure from that norm as Burstein directed a tug-at-the-heartstrings series of web exchanges between a dad and his daughter who is in her first year of college, fighting some homesickness and adjusting to living independently for the first time. The strong bond between the two seems to become even stronger and more evident, with the father providing comfort and himself feeling some angst, particularly when he sees online his daughter with her boyfriend for the first time.
The Acord-directed "Jogger" was part of the "Find Your Greatness" campaign which Nike and W+K tied into the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. The work eloquently captures the greatness in everyday people looking to improve themselves, an inspired creative detour from marquee star athletes during the Olympics. In "Jogger," the simplicity of a heavyset youngster jogging in silence down a road speaks volumes.
Earlier this year, SHOOT connected with Acord who reflected on the "Greatness" campaign. "I love the conceptual strength of the work," he assessed. "For the guys at Wieden, it's not just the creative behind the ad but also how that ad fits into the context of the world, the sport, the event–in the case of this campaign, the Olympics. 'Find Your Greatness" reminds us that greatness is in London and everywhere. In fact, the kid we cast in 'Jogger,' a wonderful young man named Mason, is from London, Ohio."
And Canon's "Inspired" depicts the lengths people will go in order to take a special photograph. A man leans precariously over the side of a home's snowy rooftop, with camera in hand to capture a scene we cannot see. A woman frantically flees from a fast charging giraffe yet still manages to get off some shots of the animal with a camera held at different awkward angles. A guy shoots seafood on ice at an outdoor Chinese market only to be shooed away by the proprietor. A man climbs a huge reef with camera at the ready. A mom looks to snap the perfect shot of her daughter blowing out the candles on her birthday cake. Another man finds himself running helter skelter away from swarming bats who were presumably riled up when his flash lit up their dwelling. A guy has his head nearly submerged in a lake but holds his camera up high enough to get a shot of something or someone out of our view. A man has a badly scraped knee, a wound evidently suffered while trying to get his camera someplace it shouldn't have been. And a young gent with skates on his feet and a skateboard under his back swoops down a steep street to follow a tire on fire rolling down the thoroughfare.
A super then appears on screen which simply reads: "Long live imagination."
All these earnest photographers are introduced to us with the musical accompaniment of a specially arranged rendition of the song "Beautiful Dreamer" as vocalized by Rachel Fannan of Only You. Her performance also is the aural backdrop to a series of still photos we next see that were shot in action by these photographers who dared to pursue their dream shots. It turns out, for example, that the man on the snowy rooftop was shooting a friend luxuriating in a backyard pool surrounded by snow and ice.
A voiceover concludes, "What will you imagine with the new Rebel EOS T4i from Canon?"
The commercial Emmy winner will be announced and honored during the Creative Arts Emmy ceremony in Los Angeles on Sunday, Sept. 15. The Primetime Emmy Awards, telecast live on CBS, take place in L.A. on Sunday, Sept. 22.
Here are this year's Emmy-nominated spots:
This is the second installment in a 12-part series that will explore the field of Emmy nominees and winners spanning such disciplines as directing, cinematography, editing, animation and VFX. The series will run right through the Creative Arts Emmys ceremony and the following week's primetime Emmy Awards live telecast. In addition to appearing on SHOOTonline and in our weekly email newsletter, The SHOOT >e.dition, The Road To Emmy will also have its Part 6 installment in SHOOT's August 16 print issue.
Click here to read The Road To Emmy, Part 1.
Click here to read The Road To Emmy, Part 3.
Click here to read The Road To Emmy, Part 4.
Click here to read The Road To Emmy, Part 5.
Click here to read The Road To Emmy, Part 6.
Click here to read The Road To Emmy, Part 7.
Click here to read The Road To Emmy, Part 8.
Click here to read The Road To Emmy, Part 9.
Click here to read The Road To Emmy, Part 10.
Click here to read The Road To Emmy, Part 11.
Click here to read The Road To Emmy, Part 12.
