Employed to describe everything from free-range chicken breasts to particularly moving Grateful Dead solos, the word "organic" is, along with fellow sufferers "transcendent" and "ironic," among the day’s most wildly overused terms. However, in describing the work of Jake Scott, director with bicoastal RSA USA, the word is hard to avoid.
Take, for instance, his recent Nike spot "Move," out of Wieden+ Kennedy (W+K), Portland, Ore. Shot in real time—24 frames per second—and without the use of special effects, the commercial opens with a nondescript teenage boy jogging down a suburban street. From there the spot transitions to a procession of athletes—some amateurs, some professionals like tennis player Lindsay Davenport and soccer star Landon Donovan—swinging rackets, kicking balls, catching Frisbees, racing up beaches and along city streets, creating what Scott describes as a sort of "sport anthem."
"Move" is beautifully shot and set to a haunting piano-based score composed by Jonathan Elias of bicoastal Elias Arts, but what is perhaps most striking about the spot is the sense of momentum it creates by using nothing but the natural rhythms of the athletes on the screen. Working closely with editor Adam Pertofsky of Rock Paper Scissors, Los Angeles, Scott crafted the shots into a series of gentle crescendos. The result: Both the individual scenes and the structure of the piece as a whole convey an intense feeling of movement and power. For a brief 90 seconds the commercial attains that great aesthetic Holy Grail: the seamless integration of form and content. Before it, even the most lethargic of viewers would be hard pressed not to get up off the couch and, well, hopefully, go buy a pair of Nikes.
It is stunning work, but stunning work is what the industry has come to expect from Scott. Since making his debut in 1991 with "Soundhammer," a spot he directed for Michael Conrad & Leo Burnett GmbH, Frankfurt, for Blaupunkt stereos, Scott has gone on to helm a number of ads for such clients as Sony, RCA, Ericsson, ESPN and British Telecom. Last year he helmed two well-received spots for Coca-Cola—"Campfire" and "Rooftop"—out of McCann-Erickson, New York.
For the son of Ridley Scott (Black Hawk Down, Gladiator) and nephew of Tony Scott (Spy Game, Enemy of the State) pursuing a career as a director seems only natural. And, in fact, when asked about his entry into film, he admits that it was "fairly nepotistic." He got his first taste of the industry while working as an assistant in the editing rooms at RSA’s London office.
From there he went to art school, dabbling briefly in fashion design at Middlesex Polytechnic, London. "I didn’t want it to be ‘and Sons,’ " Scott says dryly about this brief rebellion against the family business. He lasted a term before he embraced the inevitable and returned to film, working in art direction and set design for directors David Fincher, then of now defunct Propaganda Films (he has since joined bicoastal Anonymous Content), and Michael Karbelnikoff of bicoastal HKM Productions. In ’91 the younger Scott made his directorial debut with the aforementioned "Soundhammer." He followed with "Blue Date," also for Blaupunkt. The latter ad earned a Bronze Lion at the Cannes International Advertising Festival.
In October ’99, after a string of ads for the likes of RCA and Aiwa, Scott tried his hand at a full-length feature with the USA Films release Plunkett & Macleane, an anarchic and oft-anachronistic period piece starring Liv Tyler, Jonny Lee Miller and Robert Carlyle. The tale of two notorious 18th-century highwaymen, the film was, in Scott’s own words, "very poorly received."
"It was ninety-percent vitriol," he says of the critical reception. "In England it was a pretty bad time. You know how the British love to be negative."
Especially, it might be said, when the director in question is the son of Ridley Scott and there are charges of nepotism—however baseless—to be thrown about. Nonetheless, Jake Scott assesses, the experience made him a much better director. "I grew up making that film," he explains. "It frightened the shit out of me. I thought, ‘Fuck, I’ve got to pull my socks up and look at myself a little harder and decide on what I want to become as a director. I want a career. I don’t want five minutes. I want to make serious films.’ "
This seriousness of purpose is characteristic. Though laid back, and anything but pretentious, quite clearly Scott holds his work to a very high standard. There is a quiet intensity about him. It emerges as he discusses a recent set of spots he directed for Bank of America. "I don’t like those Bank of America commercials," states Scott, "and I don’t mind saying it. I feel those got completely distorted from what I had gone to shoot, what I had intended."
Launched nationwide last November and shown during the recent Winter Olympics, the spots, created by Bozell, New York, depict rank-and-file bank employees attempting various winter sports, to predictably comic effect. What Scott had initially imagined as a series of very simple, witty, droll ads, became, after editing, what he characterizes as "overstated" and "heavy handed." It’s not representative of what I did," he says. "It’s not at all in my taste."
What is in Scott’s taste, it would seem, is simplicity and an emphasis on reality in filmmaking—not so much a factual reality, but a coherence of style and detail. He brings up director David Lynch as an example, observing, "Why do people like David Lynch? Well, David Lynch creates a world; it feels real unto itself. That is definitely my primary focus."
As a long string of beautiful spots demonstrates, more often than not Scott pulls it off: a world that "feels real unto itself." Where each detail flows naturally from the ones that precede it, just as the rhythms and momentum of "Move" flow naturally from the motion of the athletes on the screen. It all sounds rather, dare we say, organic?
