During his career, director David Cornell has worked with some impressive talent. He has directed luminaries ranging from British royalty (Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York) to Hollywood royalty (Shirley MacLaine and Sally Field), in addition to such athlet es as Tiger Woods, Evander Holyfield, Charles Barkley, Barry Sanders and Anna Kournikova, among others.
No celebrity has ever intimidated Cornell, except one: Mike Ditka, the former Chicago Bears and New Orleans Saints c oach who’s known for his tirades on the football field. "He’s the only one I was actually frightened of," says Cornell, who directs via bicoastal Headquarters, which he co-founded in 1992.
Ditka was cast in Charles Schw ab’s "Retirement," for BBDO New York. The commercial depicts Holyfield, Barkley, Sanders, Wade Boggs and Tara Lipinski as recent retirees at Shady Hills, a rest home for athletes—thanks to savvy investing with Schwab. In the end, Ditka walks into t he retirement village, as the supered text reads, "Retired Thursday," a timely reference to his then-brand-new firing as coach of the Saints.
"BBDO asked if I was available to shoot the entire project within a week," rec alls Cornell. "We dashed to New York, found a location and were shooting two days later."
On set, Cornell found that Ditka had a hard time taking direction. "He was so aggressive in his football persona," recalls the dir ector. "We were charging through the day of shooting. [In the spot], Ditka looked down towards Charles Barkley and up at the bed. I sheepishly asked him if he would do it the other way, and he just glared at me. I operate the camera, too, so I was next to Charles Barkley’s knee, shooting up at Ditka. Ditka turned around to [BBDO executive creative director] Jimmy Siegel and said, ‘Who is that guy?’ He was absolutely terrifying."
"Retirement" broke during the 2000 Super B owl, and helped Cornell earn his second Directors Guild of America (DGA) nomination, for best commercial director of 2000. He previously won the honor when the DGA named him best commercial director of ’89. The other entries that contributed to his current nomination are: "Ringo" for Charles Schwab; and "Synchronized Commercialism," "I Enjoy Being a Girl" and "Tattoo" for Visa. BBDO was the agency for all the spots.
Assessing his chances of winning as "minimal," Cornell adds, "I think the competition is fierce enough for me not to have any delusions of adequacy." (Leslie Dektor of Dektor Film, Hollywood, won the award.)
The DGA recognition, however, does serve to further validate Cornel l’s consistent collaboration with BBDO, and with Siegel, in particular. Cornell began directing for BBDO when he moved to the U.S. from his native South Africa in the mid-’80s, but a subsequent falling out with a BBDO art director led to Cornell being ess entially banned from working for the agency for a period of time.
Thanks to the efforts of Headquarters’ partner/executive producer Tom Mooney, Cornell has been back in the BBDO fold for the past six years. "From that mo ment on," says Cornell, "it’s been a wonderful relationship of working with Jimmy whenever I can on his accounts"—the two main ones being Visa and Schwab. Cornell has exclusively directed the ads for the latter for the past few years.
"There’s just so much good work at BBDO, and it’s all such a high standard," relates Cornell. "You want to be available for any good idea that Jimmy Siegel and his team has. Jimmy has an incredibly dynamic way of working."
In fact, Siegel wrote "I Enjoy Being a Girl" on the fly, while he, his creative team and Cornell were in mid-shoot for Visa’s "Pole Vaulter." "We had this beautiful sunny day inSanta Monica shoo ting ‘Pole Vaulter’ with the female athlete on a beach," recalls Cornell. "The footage was working so well that Jimmy, right there and then, wrote the script for ‘I Enjoy Being a Girl.’ "
Cornell brings to the set his own experiences fro m the agency side; the director was head of production at Ogilvy & Mather, Capetown, South Africa, in the early ’80s."As an ex-agency person myself, there’s a dynamic quality in the writing and development of storyboards that I love," he comments. "I love not being completely locked in."
In the case of "Ringo," it was Ringo Starr, the ex-Beatle himself, who proved to be game for anything. The spot featured the former Beatle hanging out with his current bandmates in a jam session, as they brainstorm for a word rhyming with "elation." Starr offers his suggestions, which include "dividend reinvestment participation," "market capitalization" and "asset allocation."
The original script didn’t have Starr playing the drums. "W hen we staged it," says Cornell, "I commented it would be nice if we came into the scene and they were jamming. His agent said, ‘No, no, no?x2014;he’s not going to touch the drums.’ Then Ringo arrives, sits down and starts grooving. It was unbelievable."
Starr was just as accommodating off-camera, as well. He invited Cornell’s children to hang out in his trailer, and also gave the director a big hug at the end of the day. "I’m very much hands-on as a director, and I’m behind the lens," e xplains Cornell. "Occasionally, I’ll have a quiet moment with the talent, but normally not. So it was a wonderful feeling that this guy acknowledged what I was doing."
Highly regarded for his keen eye, Cornell formally began to DP his di recting projects nine years ago, mainly because John Stanier, a DP with whom he collaborated regularly, was unavailable. So Cornell bought his own camera and began doing it himself. Having already worked as a camera operator, he found that he enjoyed using light meters and being responsible for exposures. "Because I’ve got a very strong point of view about how something should be lit," he says, "?x2026;it was a very easy transition."
Cornell isn’t nurturing feature film aspirations. His ’89 DGA win sparked a flurry of calls from talent scouts, and a couple of film scripts were sent his way. But that’s the closest he’s gotten to Hollywood, which is fine with him. "With the amount of time and effort that goes into making commercials and tr ying to maintain a home life," he states, "I don’t want to give up the rest of my waking hours to fight for a movie. I don’t have the interest or the energy for it. I love what I’m doing now."
