I don’t see there being a great deal of difference, really," says James Brown, who directs spots in the U.S. via bicoastal Smuggler, and in the U.K. through Stink, London. Brown, perhaps best known as a music video helmer, is comparing working on ads and working on clips. "The only difference in doing a music video is that the product talks," he adds.
Brown has directed clips for Tori Amos, Faithless, Finley Quaye, Joan Osborne and the Spice Girls, but he’s also an important person in the commercial world. In fact, Brown was the lead director on the first global spot campaign for McDonald’s, which united McDonald’s branches in more than 100 countries under a single brand message. The campaign began rolling out around the world in early September, breaking stateside at the end of the month. Stink served as the production company on the groundbreaking project, which was created by German ad agency Heye & Partner, Munich, and features the tag, "I’m lovin’ it." Additionally, Justin Timberlake sings a hip-hop flavored jingle of the same title, and makes cameo appearances in several of the spots.
In terms of production, the McDonald’s campaign is both massive and unusual. In addition to directing, Brown oversaw nine other Stink directors who shot material for the spots in locales such as Rio de Janeiro, Prague, Johannesburg and Singapore.
The campaign’s inaugural spot, "I’m Lovin’ It," shows people engaged in fun-loving activities, including a guy doing a cannon ball dive into a pool where a woman is lounging on a raft, a man "driving" a car being pulled by a tow truck, and office workers racing their wheeled chairs. McDonald’s products are featured more as scenery than traditional product shots. The package attempts to capture a joie de vivre that Brown would like to think is universal. "I hope it transcends the barriers of religion and everything," he says, adding that the spots are also personal. "We call them ‘eye stories’ in that they’re very personal and about specific people loving life."
The campaign’s ads, posted at Peep Show Post, London, utilize footage culled from the various location shoots. Brown set parameters for the other directors, but also allowed them to have a certain amount of freedom. "I tried to get a line going through everything," he says. "I tried to give [the directors] limitations, and tried to get them to capture everything like it was happening live."
The McDonald’s effort is a huge campaign, but once shooting began, Brown didn’t feel much pressure. "We shot with small crews in a low-key kind of way," he said. "It didn’t feel like a big thing when we were making it."
Band aid
Brown also recently directed a Sheraton Hotel campaign through Smuggler via Deutsch, New York. "Epic," the centerpiece of the four-spot campaign (which also includes "Jubilation," "Broken String" and "Lights Out"), stars the San Diego-based rock group, Convoy, who also recorded a version of the Rolling Stones’ classic "Let’s Spend the Night Together" for the ad.
We hear the track’s opening strains as a wide shot of a Sheraton Hotel exterior comes into view. The camera then shows the band’s members on various balconies performing the song. Cut to sped-up images of the group goofing around in the hotel—swimming through air, walking on ceilings and running around the hallways. The band tries to make an exit from the hotel, but adoring fans drive them inside. Back in their room, four of the five rockers doze off on a spacious bed in front of the TV, but a fired-up band mate jumps up and down on the bed just to stir things up. The tag: "Sheraton has a new spin. See for yourself."
Brown says that working on "Epic" was like working on a spot and a music video at the same time. "You had the strains and peculiarities of a commercial and a music video," he relates.
Not everything went smoothly, however. "The first morning, the whole shoot almost went down the drain over the singer’s sideburns," Brown humorously recalls. Apparently, the client wanted the vocalist to lose the facial hair, but the singer wasn’t having it. The director found a way to keep everyone happy—he told the client he would film the singer in such a way that you couldn’t see his sideburns. "Basically, the compromise that I came to was that if I framed them out and we never actually saw them, then it wasn’t an issue anyway, right?" Brown said.
Even though Brown doesn’t see much difference between directing clips and spots, he acknowledges that the target audience does change things. "[‘Epic’] would be a bad music video, but it’s quite a good commercial," he says. "The way you approach it as a filmmaker is the same, but actually what you make is different. You have to have slightly different hats on along the way."
Brown came to advertising in a roundabout way. After studying theater and English literature at the University of Manchester in the U.K., he acted in live theater. He then decided to travel and wound up in Japan, where he was a photojournalist for the Japan Times, and wrote a screenplay. Next, he moved back to England, where he worked as an editor at VTR, London, before moving on to direct music videos, short films and commercials. He joined Stink four years ago, and Smuggler last year.
Does Brown think there’s a thread that runs through all the work he directs? "I’d like to think the viewer connects with [all of] it," he notes. "Hopefully, the work has some disarming quality that draws you in. That’s what I strive for."
Connecting with audiences is an idea that goes all the way back to Brown’s experiences in the field of drama. "In theater they’re always talking about breaking down boundaries and trying to connect with the audience," he says. "I apply that to filmmaking. That’s my main aim."
