Baker Smith is difficult to define as a director. Tag him a comedy helmer, and the striking visual sense displayed in his work gets in the way. Call him a visual stylist and the dead-on, offbeat dialogue and hilarious sight gags in the spots he directs out of Tate & Partners, Santa Monica, make that label appear woefully inadequate.
Take his Sprite spot "Movie Makers" for Lowe & Partners/SMS (now Lowe Lintas & Partners), New York. The setting is a sterile executive conference room at a Hollywood studio. The attention to detail in using the set to reflect the tone of the spot is perfect: lots of metal and glass in cold colors, with studio execs clad in designer suits and sitting around a table. Then the characters start pitching a concept for a new blockbuster to the studio chief. "Okay, people, what have you got?" the boss says, sliding into a chair. "Death Slug," says the guy from marketing. In quick succession, they pitch the tie-ins: a rubber slug action figure that leaves a slime trail, a Death Slug taco that shrinks when salt is added, a Slug Slime music video, slug slippers and slug on a stick. "What about the script?" asks the boss. "We can have one by Friday," replies an exec.
"I try to approach everything from a conceptual point of view as far as the look," says Smith. "I tend to think that the concept should dictate what the film looks like. In this case, the story was about cold-hearted bastards who care about nothing other than themselves and marketing points."
Now contrast the sterility of "Movie Makers" with Heineken’s "The Premature Pour," also for Lowe Lintas & Partners, where pouring a beer serves as a metaphor for a botched sexual encounter. In the elegant surroundings of a chic bar, a young woman pours the sexiest beer ever filmed, as Al Green’s "Let’s Stay Together" is heard, making her intentions crystal clear. A man is captivated by her, but blows his chance by dumping his Heineken in a glass, sending foam flying.
A conscious effort to sell beer, using premature ejaculation as a metaphor? "Absolutely! We embraced it wholeheartedly," Smith relates. "Obviously it was the agency’s idea, and one, certainly, any guy can associate with."
