He was working with a celebrity he’d never heard of, a script that had been changed at the 11th hour and some of the worst weather this side of his native Britain. Still, Chris Palmer says he "quite enjoyed" helming Nike’s "Off Road" via Wieden+ Kennedy (W+K), Portland, Ore.
Part of the "Enjoy the Weather" campaign for Nike, out of W+K, "Off Road" was produced through bicoastal Anonymous Content, Palmer’s stateside production company roost; he directs European ads through Gorgeous Enterprises, London. In the ambitious spot, cycling champ Lance Armstrong takes his racing bike off-road during a rainstorm, leaving his competition in the dust—not to mention the mud, the woods and, in one instance, a rushing mountain stream.
"The original script bombed out; somebody didn’t like it," Palmer recalls. "The script I eventually shot, I think we got it on a Friday night, and we flew to Canada that Sunday. We had to put it together and shoot it the following week."
The new script, he adds, "was nothing like the original. Lance Armstrong was in [both]—that was the only connection." Palmer found the material challenging, to say the least. "Pedaling these bloody racing bikes," he says, "with these little razor-sharp tires cross-country, through woods and stuff. My initial thought was, ‘This isn’t possible.’ "
But Palmer didn’t allow himself to think that way for long. "The whole shoot was so fast, I didn’t have time to get stressed," he relates. "It was quite a lot to do, and it was hectic. Also, I don’t know the first thing about bikes. I had to learn a lot, very quickly."
Like who his star performer—and three-time Tour de France champion—was. "Lance Armstrong turned up, and everyone was mind-blown he was there," explains Palmer. "The locals were over-awed by him. But the English crew and I, we didn’t have a clue who he was."
Palmer honed in on the spot’s theme. "What it was about was dynamic shots and speed," he points out. "I had about three days to figure out how the hell to do it." The director found some skilled cyclists, attached cameras to their bikes, and captured the action from a range of perilous angles. He says that Armstrong was a good sport, "for the few minutes we had him. He got helicoptered out at the first possible opportunity."
Not that Palmer blames Armstrong. "My God, the weather was bad. It was horrible. We were up in the hills, in the freezing rain and snow, and everything was leaking. It was what the spot was all about, but the downside was that the weather made it very difficult to shoot. There’s that end line, ‘Enjoy the weather.’ The whole time I was thinking, ‘Who the fuck came up with that?’ "
Nonetheless, Palmer says filming "Off Road" was a positive experience, and that the agency gave him a lot of creative freedom. "I think [the W+K creatives] were too cold and miserable and wet to get too involved," he jokes. "They just wanted us to get on with it."
Tech Prowess
Kidding aside, Palmer has always been up for a challenge. His favorite shoots are often the ones he calls "technical nightmares," like "Hold Up," which earned two Gold Clios and a British Television Advertising Gold (among other awards) in 2001. In that spot, which Palmer directed for Orange, out of Gorgeous via WCRS, London, a big screen-style car chase takes place atop a bar, illustrating the accessibility of movie reviews through the British telecommunications company. "I shot the real cars separately in an aircraft hanger, and then a couple of weeks later, I did all the shots on the bar, with model cars. Then I cut it all together," says Palmer. "I shot some images with a static camera, others with a moving camera, but I tried to give the whole thing a feel of motion by putting blurred shots in between. Before I started, I had to know every angle I needed, and which ones had to be tight."
Palmer is a firm believer in preparation. "I try to work out what I need up front," he states. "I storyboard, shoot [animatics] using existing footage. Then I work out where I need to spend my time. Obviously, the more you can shoot on the day, the better, but I try to know what areas are important, going in. It gives you immense freedom. On the shoot itself, I’m very relaxed, because I’ve done my homework."
Though Palmer believes all his prep work "would be an ideal system for the States, because you know what you’re going to get from me up front," he says he hasn’t done a lot of work here. "I’d like to, but I’m not very good at conference calls," he admits. "In England I can walk into an [agency] office and be very negative about a script, which is ultimately positive. I can say, ‘I don’t think that works, and I don’t think that works.’ And then I can try to fix it. I don’t think you can do that in the States. You’ve got to say, ‘That’s great, and that’s great.’ It’s very difficult to talk about improving a script on a conference call, when you’ve got six other directors talking about how wonderful it is."
While he’s been helming commercials for eight years, Palmer has spent a considerable amount of time taking those conference calls. A former copywriter at London agencies Bartle Bogle Hegarty and Lowe Howard-Spink, Palmer co-founded Simons Palmer Clemmow & Johnson as creative director in ’88. After earning several awards and helping to garner clients like Nike, Wrangler, British Telecom and Greenpeace, he split with the agency. He started helming commercials full-time in ’94.
Palmer signed with Redwing Films, London, where he directed spots for Coca-Cola, Polaroid, Hugo Boss and Häagen-Dazs, before founding Gorgeous in ’95. In ’97, executive producer Paul Rothwell and fellow director Frank Budgen joined Palmer at Gorgeous’ helm. Anonymous began representing the Gorgeous directors stateside last year.
Also last year, Palmer helmed a high-profile Heineken campaign—comprising the spots "Blackmail," "We Mean It," "Nearly There" and "Treat"—via Lowe Lintas, London. "What it was, was a collection of the worst B celebrities in England—the people that are most hated—singing the Carpenters song ‘Close to You,’ " he states. "The idea was, if you didn’t buy Heineken beer, they would continue running the ads." The campaign generated so much heat that it landed on the cover of the Daily Mirror, under the headline ‘Aaaaaaargh!’
Palmer hopes to do more stateside work in the future. As for those conference calls, "I have to learn to be very positive," he says dryly. "It’s just so friggin’ hard."
