Harvest Director Scores Touchdown With Bud Light's "Skydiver"
By Emily Vines
SANTA MONICA --When a director is working his way up the ranks, trying to hone his craft and get noticed, spec projects can be a useful tool. They can help a director create a reel to showcase his or her talents, eliciting interest from the marketplace and hopefully real-world assignments. For director Michael Downing of harvest, Santa Monica, a spec spot for Bud Light/Anheuser-Busch not only brought him a job, but catapulted him onto the national scene at this year’s Super Bowl. The day after the Big Game, his commercial, “Skydiver,” through DDB Chicago, was ranked most popular on USA Today’s Ad Meter.
The comical spec turned Super Bowl ad features a group of skydivers as they are about to make a jump. The first man out excitedly takes the plunge, but the second man in line refuses. The group’s organizer tempts the timid man with Bud Light. Throwing a six pack out of the plane, the lead guy hopes that the apprehensive man will go after it. Instead, the pilot appears. Unable to resist the beer, the pilot jumps out of the aircraft.
This was Downing’s first job in the U.S. and his first experience shooting on a stage. He and DP John Schwartzman (Seabiscuit, Meet the Fockers) shot this during the course of a single day at New Deal Studios, Los Angeles. “We had a blast doing it,” the helmer shared.
Later, the director found out that it would air. About a month after that, he learned that it would air during the Super Bowl.
On his approach to “Skydiver” the director said, “The big objective was to cast it really well and then shoot it in a way that seemed realistic, like it was happening, and then not let it get hokey because it could have been pretty hokey. When you have absolutely crazy ideas, it’s good to just play the situation pretty much for real.”
OPPORTUNITY OR OPPORTUNISTIC?
There are mixed opinions about a large corporation like Anheuser-Busch soliciting spec work from production companies. Some view it is a great opportunity for unknown directors to do work for high-profile clients, while others believe it creates an unfair situation where production companies are doing work for free. (In this case, harvest was reimbursed for expenses.)
Downing’s take is that it’s a great opportunity, adding that if money were involved, he wouldn’t have had a chance to land the project. To him it is a savvy business paradigm and a loophole that has worked in his favor.
On spec work in general the director said, “I love it, it’s total freedom and on my own terms, and invariably [involves] just amazing scripts that are hard to sell through clients.”
Harvest executive producer/co-founder Bonnie Goldfarb said they do spec commercials often. “It’s a way that the company can support and invest in your director,” she commented. “I think it’s imperative to get them on the map these days with a big client or even good creative.”
Until now, Downing hadn’t done work of this scale. He signed with harvest several months ago for his first commercial representation in the States and has been with Radke Films, Toronto, for the past two years. Some of his recent work has been for clients like LMU Basketball (Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles) through Ignited Minds, Marina Del Rey, Calif., and Science World, in Vancouver, B.C., through Rethink, Vancouver. The LMU job is featured this week in SHOOT‘s “The Best Work You May Never See” gallery.
He recently completed a spot for Honda in Canada through Grip Limited, Toronto, but said that overall, the success of “Skydiver” hasn’t changed his professional landscape much.
“He was already on his way,” Goldfarb said. “I think the Super Bowl just brought his name to the forefront.”
Credit at DDB Chicago goes to group creative director Mark Gross, art director Dan Strasser, copywriter Joe Sgro, and executive producer Marianne Newton.
Grant Gustafson edited through The Whitehouse, Chicago.After 20 Years of Acting, Megan Park Finds Her Groove In The Director’s Chair On “My Old Ass”
Megan Park feels a little bad that her movie is making so many people cry. It's not just a single tear either — more like full body sobs.
She didn't set out to make a tearjerker with "My Old Ass," now streaming on Prime Video. She just wanted to tell a story about a young woman in conversation with her older self. The film is quite funny (the dialogue between 18-year-old and almost 40-year-old Elliott happens because of a mushroom trip that includes a Justin Bieber cover), but it packs an emotional punch, too.
Writing, Park said, is often her way of working through things. When she put pen to paper on "My Old Ass," she was a new mom and staying in her childhood bedroom during the pandemic. One night, she and her whole nuclear family slept under the same roof. She didn't know it then, but it would be the last time, and she started wondering what it would be like to have known that.
In the film, older Elliott ( Aubrey Plaza ) advises younger Elliott ( Maisy Stella ) to not be so eager to leave her provincial town, her younger brothers and her parents and to slow down and appreciate things as they are. She also tells her to stay away from a guy named Chad who she meets the next day and discovers that, unfortunately, he's quite cute.
At 38, Park is just getting started as a filmmaker. Her first, "The Fallout," in which Jenna Ortega plays a teen in the aftermath of a school shooting, had one of those pandemic releases that didn't even feel real. But it did get the attention of Margot Robbie 's production company LuckyChap Entertainment, who reached out to Park to see what other ideas she had brewing.
"They were very instrumental in encouraging me to go with it," Park said. "They're just really even-keeled, good people, which makes... Read More