Charles Wittenmeier has a pet peeve. "I always hate when somebody says, ‘I saw a movie and the special effects were great.’ They weren’t that special if they were that noticeable," states Wittenmeier, who directs spots out of bicoastal/international Propa-ganda Films. In his view, the same concept applies to commercials: "Ideally, special effects shouldn’t stand out—they should be as seamless as possible."
In an age of ever-more-elaborate digital creations, Wittenmeier’s view may be unfashionable. But over the past dozen years his aesthetic has guided the production of some highly praised spots. The latest example of Wittenmeier’s work to hit the airwaves is a campaign for Lucky Brand jeans via Odiorne Wilde Narraway+Partners (OWN+P), San Francisco, which features a crude shamrock puppet named Mr. Happy Go Lucky—"Hap" for short—in a series of retro ads that hark back to the early days of television.
Wittenmeier singles out the Lucky Brand campaign as his most refreshing experience recently. He says that the client allowed a lot of freedom—in fact, when OWN+P pitched the idea, the people at Lucky Brand told the agency to be even bolder. "[Lucky Brand] picked the right agency," Wittenmeier remarks. "It was really a nice marriage."
According to Wittenmeier, the campaign’s backstory is that it dates to 1948 and was "found in some vault." The spots are shot in black-and-white and feature jingles that are "right to the era"—though the spokespuppet is quite a bit more "on edge" than authenticity demands, tending to burst into bleep-filled tirades.
Not surprisingly, the ads incorporate visual effects, which were done by Savage Industry, San Francisco, that help create a late-’40s look, but don’t jump out at viewers. "I respect commercials that have good special effects that help drive a story," Wittenmeier relates.
He notes that it is difficult to rely on the latest visual effects these days, because progress in the field is so quick. It’s hard to be impressed by "the latest thing" even two months after it airs, he points out, so ads that try to be cutting-edge don’t have much shelf life.
Even so, the director states, "I love to work with the best people when I work in special effects." As an example he cites noted special effects creator Stan Winston of Stan Winston Studios, Van Nuys, Calif., who has worked on such feature films as Pearl Harbor, The Sixth Sense and Jurassic Park, and who created the effects in "Eagle Eye Exam," a Wittenmeier-helmed ad for Jeep via PentaMark, Southfield, Mich., in which a bald eagle gets its eyes checked after seeing the new Jeep Liberty SUV.
B-School
Not a film school graduate, Wittenmeier says he learned the trade by doing it. He admits that he went to the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, "for ten minutes," but for his film education he turned to another institution: Roger Corman, the B-director with whom many noted helmers—like Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese—have apprenticed. Wittenmeier cut his teeth on low-budget films that were, in his words, "the kind of movies where Erik Estrada is the star."
He built a commercial reel, and in ’89 he signed with now defunct Harmony Pictures, first as part of a directing team—Bliss—before going solo. After more than six years with Harmony, he shifted his roost to A Band Apart, Los Angeles, and moved over to Propaganda in early ’99.
Despite his success, Wittenmeier says he still appreciates low-budget productions (especially since budgets aren’t what they used to be), as long as the methods "work in the realm of the story." He also hasn’t lost his taste for feature work: He’s currently developing a screenplay for what he describes as "a comedic tragedy."
Looking to the future, Wittenmeier is intrigued by the possibilities inherent in the Internet, but cautious about taking advantage of them. He has yet to explore new media spot work, but reports that he is spending his free time trying to develop what he calls an "underground TV station," so that when streaming media becomes a reality he’ll have a library of good, inexpensive, new programming ready. "Quality may become king when there are a million options."
The major obstacle now, he says, is the time movies take to download from the Internet—a problem he parodied in a Canadian campaign for Rogers via MacLaren McCann, Toronto. In two spots, "Paramedics" and "ER," people have to be rushed to the hospital after suffering a sort of living rigor mortis while waiting for video to download.
But when consumers can easily download whatever they want, whenever they want, says Wittenmeier, it will mean dramatic changes for the entire entertainment industry. "As the networks start to dismantle, niche programming is going to be where it’s at," he predicts, noting that it won’t be easy to grab the viewers’ attention then. "It will be harder to advertise because people don’t want to see advertisements when they look for what they want to look for.
"Maybe there won’t be commercials," he continues, but instead advertising integrated into the programming. The prospect of hidden, yet pervasive, advertising disturbs Wittenmeier somewhat. "It will be a challenge," he says, "to do it with integrity."
