Laurence Dunmore likes the idea of being a British director working in the United States. Lately he’s been getting good scripts, such as those for the new AT&T Wireless campaign tagged "mlife," out of Ogilvy & Mather (O&M), New York. It includes the spots "Belly Buttons," which broke on the Super Bowl, and "Why?," which aired during the Winter Olympic Games. Another Dunmore ad aired heavily during the Olympics: "Focus," for the launch of the BMW 7 Series, for Fallon Minneapolis. He likes the fact that when he gets those kinds of high-profile scripts, he is asked for his creative input, from beginning to end.
"The script for the BMW was initially a very good and interesting one," relates Dunmore, who helms ads stateside out of bicoastal RSA USA; he is repped in the U.K. by RSA Films, London, and in France by The Gang Films, St. Cloud, France. "They still wanted a lot of input; they received it and they enjoyed it. The same with the AT&T job. And I’m very lucky in that I’ve been asked to produce director’s cuts on every job I’ve done here."
But perhaps what he likes best about America is the process itself, which he calls refreshing. "Ultimately, there is less confusion over what is art and what is commercial," he explains. In Europe, he says, a spot too often is "a crazy, wacky idea" with a product shot tacked onto the end. In America, spot makers say, "OK, we’re making a film that sells a car, so this is what we have to get in it. Now, in between those things, let’s try to do something different."
Putting it even more bluntly, Dunmore states: "We’re not making art. Commercials are not art. When they’re good, they’re funny, passionate, emotional—they work on various levels. They exist for thirty, sixty or ninety seconds and they’re gone. While you’ve enjoyed them, they have done their job: They sell a product and they leave us. You don’t say that when you sit down and watch Touch of Evil or The 400 Blows or a seminal piece of film, because they exist forever."
What Dunmore likes about being a Brit working in the U.S. is that his English background gives him a different eye for the American scene. "The English take on Americana or the American life sometimes seems to have a little more insight than that of the people who live it and work in it," he points out. "If you grow up in something, you often don’t see it because it’s so familiar. Big cars, neon signs, motels, air conditioning—all the things we don’t have in London—become the clichés. I try to take those clichés, and take them more to the extreme."
An example from the mlife spot "Why" is a shot of a wedding party. "If we’re going to use a cliché, let’s use a left-of-center one," states Dunmore. "Let’s not do a wedding at a church; let’s do it at a wedding chapel. But let’s not do it Las Vegas; let’s do it as we did, in Pasadena, in a beautiful little wedding chapel. It was superb to work in these types of offbeat locations that seem to be slightly overlooked by bigger, glossy ads. All those places that people would normally say ‘no’ to as locations are the places I like to shoot."
BMW’s "Focus" is another example. The spot takes a unique and fresh approach to the car ads that show drivers lost in reverie behind the wheel of a luxury car. As the 745i cruises rural roads, a hypnotic, resonant voiceover describes the route in poetic terms, and Dunmore’s camera shows the BMW and local landmarks. Near the conclusion, the voice becomes normal and we see the driver for the first time, as he says, "You can’t miss it," to a somewhat bewildered couple in a car stopped next to his. He’s simply been giving them directions the whole time.
"The creatives from Fallon wanted to build an intrigue and an idea," explains Dunmore. "We talked for six months about this ad. By the time we got to shoot it, we were very limited because where we were going to shoot it, in Minnesota, was under snow by the time. The reality was, we wanted to find Nowhere, America—places you hadn’t seen before in car ads. I tried to honor the idea about the script, which was about a journey. Somebody reliving, in his mind, what is in essence a mundane journey, and making poetry from that. I wanted to make the average more beautiful than it was."
The "average" that Dunmore found was in Bakersfield, Calif.—not your typical site for a high-end car spot. How does a Brit stumble upon Bakersfield? "I work with a lot of very talented people," responds Dunmore. "I gave [location scout Rad Daly] a brief, and he intuitively knew where I needed to go for it. We work with some of the most talented people, who all have an input, to add that extra twenty-five percent onto what you’re doing as the director. All of them have to tolerate my initial vision. I’m very singular; I’m focused on that. They tend to respond to that and then take it to another level that I could only dream of."
Graphic Influence
Dunmore came to directing from the graphic design business in London—he had his own company there, the now closed Laurence Dunmore Design—where his work for record companies led to a chance to do some music videos. "I was able to convince some unknown bands that I was an as-yet-undiscovered major talent and force in the pop promo industry," he laughs. "I started to realize that was actually what I loved doing: making film and working with people and putting ideas into reality."
He did his first commercial job about eight years ago, didn’t much care for it, but kept at it, doing mostly "small, English commercials" for the first couple of years. A little over four years ago, he closed his design house and signed with RSA Films, London. "I had fallen in love at that stage with the idea of making a feature film at some point," he recalls. "I saw that being a full-time director, albeit a commercials director, was certainly a very good way to head toward that."
Dunmore was most recently working in Cuba on an ad for Axe perfume that was produced through The Gang Films. "It’s a funny, sexy comedy spot," he says. "That’s why I’m doing it. It’s a much lighter type of commercial than I usually do. I try never to do the same thing twice. When people say, ‘We love that, can you do the same thing for us?’ I say, ‘No, I’ll give you something different.’ You have to find an inspiration and passion for the films you do, even though they are commercials and it’s easy to say, ‘OK, we’re fat cats out there making our money, shooting films and walking away.’ You always have to do the best you can even when the odds are against it. You have to say, if I can get five percent more from it than anybody else would have, then I’ve achieved something."
This coming winter, Dunmore plans to make his first feature, The Libertine, which he calls "a mid-17th-century, dark, pornographic romp." John Malkovich, whom Dunmore had directed in a Eurostar ad, gave him the script. "It’s an opportunity to either prove myself or disappear completely up my own backside again," Dunmore concludes.
