There aren’t many commercial directors who can say they started a dance craze. But this year, the directing team Joe Public-a.k.a. Adam Cameron and Simon Cole-introduced millions of New York Yankees fans to the "El Duque." The dance, which was named for high-kicking pitcher Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez, debuted on an ad the British duo directed for adidas, and it wasn’t long before it became hotter than the Macarena with the stadium crowd. "El Duque Dance" was one of six spots that earned Joe Public its first Directors Guild of America (DGA) nomination for best commercial director of ’99. As pleased as they are with the DGA nod, Cameron and Cole would rather talk about their contribution to pop culture. "We went to Yankee Stadium, and in the bleachers, they were all doing the dance and quoting lines from the commercial," says Cole.
The spot, out of Leagas Delaney, San Francisco, depicts a crowd of hip New York clubgoers mimicking Hernandez’s trademark pitching technique on the dance floor, as giant video screens show the real El Duque in action. When fellow Yankee pitcher David Cone asks a woman in the club what the dance is called, she rolls her eyes at his ignorance before responding, "It’s the El Duque." At the end of the spot, Cone is shown in the men’s room, practicing some goofy moves as he attempts to invent his own dance.
"That shoot was particularly difficult," says Cole. "We were working with Dave Cone, who is an inexperienced actor-a sports star."
"There were a lot of pressures on the schedule," Cameron adds. "When you shoot with celebrities, you don’t tend to get too long with them, so you don’t get too many chances of getting the right take."
Joe Public, which is represented by bicoastal Headquarters, had only one day to shoot "El Duque Dance." Fortunately, they’d worked with Cone on adidas’ "Rest That Arm," also for Leagas Delaney. "What you’ve got to do with these celebrities is find out what it is they are confident in, what they do well, and use that to the best advantage," explains Cole. "There’s something about that slightly startled, deer-in-the-headlights look that Dave Cone has that we’d recognized from shooting the previous spot, and we worked with that. If we were trying to get Dave Cone to behave like Robin Williams, then we’d have been in trouble."
Potpourri
Shot in black and white, the straightforward "El Duque Dance" looks very different from Joe Public’s five other DGA entries. "Sponsor," for Snapple via Deutsch, New York, is a parody of public service ads, in which a sincere host outlines Snapple’s efforts to "keep young fruit from going bad," as child-sized raspberries, strawberries and peaches are shown cavorting at a Snapple-sponsored fruit camp. As opposed to "El Duque Dance," Cameron says "Sponsor" required "weeks of preparation and exhaustive research into making the little fruits just right. And we used all the conventions of ‘beautifying commercials’-the swing and tilt lenses, and the beautification of a place and people."
Amazon.com’s "Two Minutes," which Joe Public directed for FCB, San Francisco, is a clever take on the old Mitch Miller sing-alongs. The spot features a group of square looking guys singing about the short time they spent choosing a Christmas gift on Amazon.com. "Any middle-aged man in a V-necked sweater has got to be funny," says Cole. "We shot all of it on seventies television cameras. Most people tend to have a safety in thirty-five millimeter, so the agency was wonderful in allowing us to do that."
The other nominated spots-Cracker Jack’s "Sizes," and "Truck Driver" for Dreyer’s Ice Cream, both out of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco; and "Fire 2" for Churchs Chicken, via Cliff Freeman and Partners, New York-have little in common beyond a sharp, slightly surreal sense of humor.
The duo is definitely a comedy team. "I think both of us naturally lean toward black humor," says Cameron, "and the blacker, the better." Cole and Cameron met 10 years ago on a beach in Greece. "We were both on vacation, ogling a huge array of beautiful, Icelandic schoolgirls," recalls Cole. Though he says the coeds "all proceeded to [flirt] with just one American windsurfing instructor," the afternoon was not a total loss. The two men began talking, and realized that they had more in common than, as Cole jokingly puts it, "a newfound hatred of all things American." Both were from the same London neighborhood and both wanted to become directors. After they returned to the U.K., they began their partnership, helming a PSA for the Molotov Brothers, the now defunct producing team. "They encouraged us, saying, ‘Listen, being a double act is a good thing in advertising,’" says Cameron. "And I think, in fact, we’re the longest surviving double act in Britain."
Joe Public signed with Headquarters in ’93, and began directing spots for clients such as Harley Davidson, Nike, McDonald’s and Intel. They’re relocating to Los Angeles in order to be closer to their largely American client base. "The best visual comedy scripts are coming out of America at the moment," says Cole.
"We’ve worked very hard to be successful on both sides of the ocean," Cameron adds. "But in a sense, the time has come where we have to make a decision. Both of us have young families, so that does play a part. But, I think for us, the sheer quantity of work that we had to turn down because we weren’t theoretically based here had become a little ridiculous."
Recently, Joe Public completed work on a Mars spot for BBDO New York that the directorial duo is particularly pleased with-especially the subject matter: "Men in drag," according to Cole. In addition to the four-day shoot, there was the script, which they agree was "fantastic." "It all comes down to the idea," says Cameron. "If we have to shoot twenty-four hours on the trot, and if it’s a funny idea, we’ll do it. If it’s not, then it’s slightly harder work."
Their individual responsibilities vary from spot to spot. "One of us might concentrate on the look of the film and the camera moves, while the other might be nearer to the performers," continues Cameron. "It all depends." The Joe Public components view themselves as interchangeable. "I think it’s pretty unusual for two people to have such similar influences, humor and ideas on how to execute something," says Cole. "We’re very lucky that way."c
