There are plusses and minuses to working in a production department at an agency known for its lavish, big-budget, often celebrity-driven commercials. Bob Emerson, senior VP/production group head at BBDO New York, would know—he produced the Pepsi Twist spot, "Britney Sighting," which featured pop star Britney Spears and Mike Myers in his Austin Powers mode.
"That put a lot of pressure on me," Emerson says. "There were an extra twenty-five people on the set who were celebrity and client power broker-type people. We had a very big soundstage in L.A., and we needed three video villages. I was running [around], trying to make sure everybody was happy. It was a challenge, but it worked out."
Regina Ebel, BBDO’s executive VP/director of television production, notes that celebrities never have as much time for a spot as the producer would like. "The Britney spot where she goes through the generations"—Pepsi’s "Now & Then," which broke during this year’s telecast of the Super Bowl—"was shot in three days," she says. "Just hair and makeup on that job could have been a day. Both the Britney spots were a monumental amount of work."
The upside of doing those kinds of spots is that they provide great satisfaction and they attract the best talent. Bryan Buckley of bicoastal/ international hungry man directed "Britney Sighting," and Emerson credits him with much of the spot’s success. "Bryan choreographed not just the spot, but also the production, in such a way that it ran very smoothly," Emerson recalls. "We had limited time, and people had to communicate correctly and quickly."
Ebel counted on director Joe Pytka—of PYTKA, Venice, Calif.—for the same kind of stewardship found on the "Now & Then" set. "Joe had already worked with Britney, and got along with her," Ebel says. "He knew her wardrobe people and could sit down with them. It was about being able to map out a plan that allowed us to cover all the shooting we needed, in the time she gave us. Joe’s a perfectionist. He wants to deliver great film and a great story."
Another plus at BBDO is the roster of blue chip clients who know the cost of being in the big leagues of Super Bowl, Academy Awards and Olympics advertising. "We have clients that play in that arena and are willing to spend production dollars," says David Frankel, senior VP/associate director of television production. Big budgets don’t guarantee good advertising, he notes, "but it is a great luxury and it affords us the opportunity to do these kinds of big spots. It’s to our clients’ credit that we have the opportunity to do this sort of work, and it’s obviously proved successful for them."
This year, BBDO had several clients appear during the Super Bowl, a venue traditionally viewed as a commercial showcase. Pepsi’s aforementioned "Now & Then" appeared on the broadcast, as did "Bacon," a spot for the Visa Check Card featuring Kevin Bacon, and directed by Buckley. Also appearing during the big game was Charles Schwab’s "HR King," directed by Buckley. The spot had Hank Aaron, Major League Baseball’s homerun leader, attempting to get San Francisco Giants’ Barry Bonds to retire. And M&M’s "Hotel," directed by Kirk Kelly of Vinton Studios, Portland, Ore., and Frank Samuel, then of Lotion, Los Angeles, also appeared during the Super Bowl. (Samuel is now with Harvest, Santa Monica.) During the 2002 Winter Olympics, held in Salt Lake City, Utah, Visa appeared with three spots—"Traffic," "Mountains" and "Surfing," directed by Klaus Obermeyer of bicoastal Flying Tiger Films. Other Olympics advertisers with spots from BBDO included General Electric (GE) and Office Depot.
Emerson takes pride in the agency’s reputation for strong production values, and gives much of the credit to Phil Dusenberry, the retired chairman/chief creative officer of BBDO. "A lot of it is the legacy of Dusenberry," says Emerson. "Phil created a culture and convinced clients that there is value to high production. A lot of the time he talked clients into the value of spending more money than maybe they would have at another agency. There is an intense involvement of senior creative people here that I’ve never seen at any other agency, and I’ve worked at six others."
BBDO’s production department consists of about 30 producers, including the top three executives, Ebel, Frankel and Emerson, who spend the majority of their time on producing rather than supervising. The department is organized informally, without strictly defined groups or client assignments, although he notes that big, high pressure jobs tend to go to more senior people. "A natural thing happens in a place with very stable employment," Emerson says. "Senior creative director-level people have their favorites and you get a kind of organic grouping of producers aligned with creative directors."
Creative Input
Emerson and Ebel joined BBDO in ’86, eight years after Frankel came aboard. Close relationships with creatives means that producers are often involved in the process early on. "I’ve worked for the last decade mainly on Visa," Frankel says, "and very often with a lot of the same people. Jimmy Siegel is the creative director [on the account], and I’m often aware of work before it’s even sold to the client. Sometimes we discuss it and talk about how to make it better. A great deal of the work de-velops that way."
"We get involved as early as we can," concurs Ebel. "We always wish we had a little more warning, an idea of the concept a little earlier, but once we hook up, and a producer and a creative team are put together, the relationship is tight and people spend a lot of time together. The producers are certainly valued at BBDO. We report to [chairman/chief creative officer] Ted Sann; we are part of the creative department."
The payoff comes when the work hits the airwaves. "It excites you to know that you’re doing work that’s got a date for the Academy Awards or the Super Bowl or the Olympics," Ebel says. "This year General Electric and Visa were on they Olympics. I think that’s part of what keeps you going. You’re really proud of the work."
It’s the kind of work that attracts directors like Buckley, Pytka and other A-list helmers to BBDO. The agency has strong, longstanding relationships with such top directors, but it is always on the lookout for fresh talent. Frankel says the agency is more willing these days to try new directors, which he attributes, in part, to young creatives moving up the ranks. "As new players come into the picture and new directors make the scene, there is much more of a willingness to try new people and bring fresh talent into the picture," Frankel says.
Frankel recently completed two Visa Check Card spots with directors who were new to him: "Sheens," featuring Martin Sheen, and his son Charlie—helmed by Allen Coulter of hungry man—and "Barbers," with look-alike NFL stars Tiki Barber (who plays for the New York Giants) and Ronde Barber (who plays for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers), directed by Samuel of Harvest.
Emerson adds that some creative directors still have a very short list of directors they want to work with, but the production department is trying to expose them to new talent. "It serves us and our creative department to get a bigger stable of people," he says. "The Bryan Buckleys aren’t always available. Sometimes money drives you to find new talent, to get the first-time price. [New directors] are anxious to break into BBDO."
Emerson, who is currently bidding on a Pizza Hut package, which may include a Super Bowl commercial, just finished a spot for an undisclosed client, directed by Speck/ Gordon—Will and Josh, respectively—of Omaha Pictures, Santa Monica; it was their first work for the agency. "I’m happy about that," Emerson says. "They were just perfect for the boards, and they did a good job. The work was well received, and now they’re players at the agency."
Ebel is currently working on a job with Pytka for an undisclosed client, but she embraces Frankel’s and Emerson’s desire for new talent. "We have an open mind about [the directors] we work with," she says. "We’re always looking at new directors. We also have a lot of strong [existing] relationships, Joe Pytka being one of them."
No matter how veteran or green a director might be, the producers at BBDO are looking for helmers who want to be part of a true collaborative process—and that includes producers. "Everybody is expected to plus the boards," Emerson says. "No one thinks of the boards as blueprints—they’re sketches. When directors get to know BBDO, they realize that is part of the deal."
Musically inclined
All three production executives sing the praises of BBDO’s music producers, a four-person team headed by Rani Vaz, senior VP/director of music and radio production.
"Rani can work with all kinds of personalities," Emerson says. "She’s sparklingly honest and fair. We all rely on her and her people. [The music is] always thought out. It’s always conceptually driven. It’s not just who’s the flavor of the month musically—it’s who is really good at certain things."
Ebel notes that Vaz sometimes gets involved in the creative process before the producer does. "Sometimes in the conceptual stage, the creative people will call her and say, ‘Can you get me this piece of music, or do a demo that does this or that?’ The music producers are important from the very beginning."
A Julliard-trained classical violinist, Vaz says the complex productions BBDO is known for often call for complex music and sound elements. "Music was the linchpin on which the Britney spots were based," she says. "The ‘Now & Then’ spot revisited the history of Pepsi and Pepsi music. We re-did the music because we didn’t have the right elements from the old commercials and we had to put them in the right keys for Britney. You know it’s newly recorded, but we tried to make it sound authentic to the era. We replicated the arrangements and the sound of the old recordings faithfully. We spent a lot of time going back and getting all the details from the originals." The weekend before the spot was shot, Vaz supervised the studio recording of the music and Spears’ vocals. "We had two days to prepare all the tracks and edits and various lengths that were required for the shoot," she says.
Another Vaz favorite from the past year was GE’s "Journey," a spot set in Africa that was directed by Pytka, with a soundtrack composed by Peter Cofield and Neil Goldberg of Sunday Productions, New York. "That was particularly rewarding because we really thought about the music before the shoot and we did quite a few demo tracks with a number of music houses. It worked out tremendously because we had a number of great tracks to cut to and we fell in love with one of them. The process just worked the way it was supposed to."
Virtually every spot produced at BBDO goes through the music department, Vaz says. Roughly 60 percent are matched with original music, with the remainder using licensed music, including recorded music, rearrangements and library tracks. Picking composers is a collaborative project, Vaz says. "Sometimes the creatives have worked with someone they really love and we’ll pursue that direction. In a crunch situation, when you need something for tomorrow at 10 a.m., there are definitely certain people you are going to call," she relates. "Sometimes we have no idea, and we screen six different reels to see who we feel is best. A job I’m working on now, as soon as I saw the board I knew exactly who I thought would be right for the project, and we went in that direction. It comes from experience."
