Phil has developed his skills as a sensitive comedy director—being very sensitive to what the client does not like, and shooting it anyway. He has a particular forte for sick humor, especially where dogs are involved." So states an ironic posting on www.philbrown. bc.ca, the Web site of director Phil Brown, who recently signed with bicoastal/international Partizan for representation in the U.S. spot market.
The posting applies to an ad called "Dog" that Brown directed for Sony Canada through his Canadian roost, Radke Films, Toronto. In the spot, via McLaren McCann, Toronto, a young lady is sunbathing in a grass field with her eyes closed and a Sony personal CD player in her ears. She is oblivious to the big, friendly, flop-eared dog next to her that is loudly licking himself in that certain place that dogs are apt to lick. At the conclusion of the spot, the dog affectionately licks the girl’s face—the point being that her music was better protected than she was. The ad ran late night in Canada, until the Sony home office in Japan got wind of it—then it was quickly pulled.
"So whenever you want to lose a job, just hire me," laughs Brown. "I’m a great believer in controversy. That’s where I like to be, in something that people feel slightly uncomfortable about. But that is my British sense of humor. I’m influenced by very physical humor, but not wacky. It’s more stuff that makes you think a bit."
Having plied his trade in Europe and Canada for the last five or six years, Brown signed with Partizan this summer. (Metro Pictures, Marina del Rey, Calif., and bicoastal The Artists Company previously represented Brown stateside.) He recently finished his first U.S. job through the company: a spot for Hasbro via Jordan McGrath Case & Partners/Euro RSCG, New York. "The Electronic Office" is more about building bridges to the U.S. agency community than it is about dogs or edgy humor. "It’s about a woman who goes into her office and everything is automated," Brown explains. "It’s like a ’70s World Trade Fair view of the future: Her chair adjusts automatically; an arm takes the coffee cup away; the computer talks to her. It says, ‘Electronic office, no. Electronic board game, yes.’ And it cuts to a group of friends in a living room playing an electronic game." The spot promotes a series of games from Hasbro under the Platinum label.
Up North
Brown has a large body of work in Canada. He has directed spots for such clients as 7Up, Western Canada Lottery, Molson Export and Canadian pet supplier Canine Equipment. In the past year, he helmed 30 short, comic spots for IKEA that aired in Germany. The ads were done out of Roche Macaulay and Partners, Toronto, and produced by Radke. Typical of the package is "Flasher," which is set at a bus stop where an older woman is waiting for a bus and a young man has a traverse rod and curtains hung on his body. When he opens the curtains, he is, of course, naked, and he does a little gyration to music with appropriate areas obscured—all in 10 seconds.
"The most success I’ve had with my kind of humor is with the European sensibility," reports Brown. "The IKEA spots are huge in Germany. Canadian television is very conservative. I’m always trying to push the limit.
"I think American humor is a little broader and tends to hit the nail on the head a few times," continues Brown. "In Europe they leave it right to the end and then give you the big headliner joke. In America, a lot of commercials are a letdown because you know it’s a comedy spot from the moment it hits the air. It just looks like a comedy spot. I think this is where some change is going to happen."
Brown cites influences that include the Monty Python crew, Peter Sellers and "the old giggling comedies in the U.K." He revels in being considered a comedy director. "I love comedy. I see myself more in comedy that isn’t clown-like but is more subtle and sick," he observes. "I’m very aware that you have thirty seconds to tell a story and you’re interrupting TV shows, so my job is to stop people from going to the kitchen."
Born in England and a graduate of Teeside Polytechnic University, Middlesborough, England, with a degree in interior design, Brown got into advertising at Format, a small agency in Aberdeen, Scotland. He first tried directing as part of a competition put on by the British magazine Creative Review. "I directed a spot for Absolut vodka that got really good reviews and actually got into the top five of that competition," recalls Brown, referring to an ad called "Absolut Intrigue. "I was invited down to London and wined and dined. That’s when I thought, ‘Hey, I can actually do this for a living.’ It was a spec spot, but the agency, TBWA London, took it and used it."
Anxious to pursue directing, Brown decided to leave Scotland. But as an unknown he was wary of making the plunge in London or the United States. "I really wanted to move to the States, but that would have been quite difficult, so I moved to Canada," he relates.
In 1994, Brown became an art director at BBDO Vancouver, B.C., where he still makes his home. "I really got my break when we were asked to do the advertising for the Vancouver Film Festival," he says. "I directed some spots for that. From there, one of the local production companies saw my work and said, ‘Whenever you’re interested in leaving the advertising business and becoming a director, we’d like to represent you.’ So I took the leap in ’96," signing with Radke.
Brown’s next job at Partizan is a Cheer spot for Procter & Gamble and Leo Burnett Co., Toronto. It’s a Canadian commercial, but Brown is adamant about doing more work in the U.S. "Every director in his right mind wants to work in the United States," he claims. "It’s a massive market and there are great creatives."
The one aspect of U.S. work he would like to see change is the tendency of many agencies to bid adieu to the director after the shooting is done. "It’s totally collaborative at the beginning," says Brown. "I like to be there at the beginning, but I also like to be there at the end. And certainly what I do, and the look of my film—I don’t achieve that by leaving the project the day after I shoot. There is so much to be done in post now."
Brown would like to see more of his work cut on film rather than being transferred to video before editing. "A lot of the stuff on my reel was cut on film," he notes. "It gives it a little bit more of a cinematic quality. It is all inherent in getting the quality of the film better. To be honest, when you’ve shot it, that’s only forty percent of the commercial. I certainly love to be involved in the music and things like sound design, and certainly the transfer—that’s a big part of the way the film looks. There’s a lot of post stuff, post effects, that you don’t actually see. A lot of people talk about comedy, saying it doesn’t matter what the film looks like. What the film looks like is a big part of what I do. That’s pretty unusual for a comedy guy."
