Rocky Morton, partner/director at bicoastal/international Morton Jankel Zander (MJZ), is that breed of director who’s got no tricks up his sleeve—just rolling film and some really great casting.
"With the camera I try to be as dispassionate and observational as possible," explains Morton of his signature style. "I try to let character always become the structure of the film, and just let things play out."
Consider the ads Morton directed this past year to promote coverage of the National Hockey League (NHL) on FOX Sports, out of TBWA/Chiat/ Day, San Francisco. The premise behind "Dumpster," "Anti-Freeze," "Iron" and "Nose Hair" is summed up by the tagline: "The more hockey you watch, the tougher you get." The campaign shows men across America enduring unbearable physical atrocities without so much as a whimper.
"Dumpster," for example, opens on a black screen that reads "Game 1." Next we see a woman waxing her boyfriend’s back while he watches the hockey game. He doesn’t even flinch when she rips the hot wax strip off his back, taking clumps of hair with it. After Game 18, the same man barely reacts when an errant dart gets lodged in his neck while he’s playing foosball. Mildly aware of the interruption, he pulls the dart out and resumes his game. After Game 47, the man is throwing out garbage when the lid of a dumpster falls squarely on his head. Had he been a mere mortal, the man would’ve either been dead or seriously brain damaged, but because he’s an NHL viewer, he simply pulls his head out and walks back inside.
The other ads in the campaign continue in this vein. When a man’s wife slams the front door on his finger in "Anti-Freeze," he regards his hand as an annoying thing that’s keeping the door open rather than a body part with nerve endings. And when this same man accidentally takes a shot of anti-freeze to the face, he shrugs it off and carries on fixing his car.
According to Morton, the scripts and ideas were already well thought out by the time he came into the project. Morton’s specialty is finding the right tone and actors to bring out the humor in the spots. "My job was to make [the ads] look convincing," he relates. "I think that was the humor—that you really believed these people, even though some of the things that happened to them were extraordinary."
The campaign’s subtle humor certainly agreed with the advertising community, as evidenced by the accolades the package received at this year’s awards shows. The campaign has been honored with a Gold Pencil at this year’s One Show; a Silver Lion at the 2003 Cannes International Advertising Festival; and silver honors at the Design & Art Direction (D&AD) Awards. Additionally, "Anti-Freeze" was awarded a Gold Pencil at the One Show, and "Iron" scored a Silver Clio.
The FOX NHL work is not the first time Morton’s been brought in to capture a deadpan performance in the face of outrageous circumstances. Back in ’02, he directed a bizarre campaign for Mike’s Hard Lemonade through Cliff Freeman and Partners, New York, which included "Second Evil Head" and "Ape-Like Men." In the latter, a couple is interrupted while loading groceries into their car by Neanderthal creatures parachuting down from the sky. One of the intruders carries the screaming woman off while her boyfriend looks on in fascination, but surprisingly little concern. Another guy comes up to him and says, "Well, that sucks," to which the first guy absent-mindedly replies, "Yeah, I really liked her." The two decide to have a Mike’s Hard Lemonade to make it all better.
While Morton put a considerable amount of work into designing the ape-like men, he had the sensibility to put the emphasis on the people in the ad. "To me, the humans reacting to the monsters is far more important to the overall humor of the spot," he relates, "even though the technique to make the monsters had to be the best it could possibly be."
Knowing when to let go of the fancy camera work is a skill that Morton developed over the 20-plus years he’s been working as a director. "I used to do a lot of special effects and I was very design oriented and obsessive about the style of things," says Morton, who was the co-creator/director of Max Headroom, the ’84 CGI British TV film and series, and spokesman for Coca-Cola. "The more years I’ve worked with actors, the more organic my filmmaking has become."
A little more than a year ago, MJZ opened up an office in the U.K., giving the British-born director a much-needed base for shooting overseas, where he spends about 20 percent of his time. Last year he directed a campaign for the Volkswagen Passat out of BMP DDB, London, which showcases the quiet humor Morton is so good at. "Ice Cream," "Dog" and "Driving Test" all feature people who are so in love with their new Passat, they’re willing to leave behind their loved ones for fear of dirtying the interior of the car. Morton is currently prepping for another undisclosed project in London, as well as another FOX Sports package here in the U.S.
THE M WORD
It was Morton’s organic style that prompted Sony Electronics Broadcast and Professional Co. and Young & Rubicam (Y&R), New York, to ask him to participate in its Sony Dreams series. It’s the second year Sony has teamed up with Y&R and asked commercial directors to shoot four-minute films based on a theme to showcase Sony’s 24p high-definition camera. This year the theme was "joy," and Morton, along with Alan Ball, creator/executive producer of Six Feet Under (he also wrote American Beauty), created a film called The M Word.
The short, shot in a single take, focuses on a man and a woman who seem to be business associates. You get the sense that their relationship is based on mutual toleration, but not affection. The man sits across from the woman’s desk in an office setting and begins mapping out a business plan of sorts that includes earning potential, children and a mid-life crisis. We quickly realize that what they’re talking about is intensely personal, but their tone and business jargon undermine what’s really happening: He’s asking her to marry him. At the film’s conclusion, the man, unable to say the word "marry," proposes a "merger" instead. After he leaves, the woman makes a pumping motion with her fist and hisses, "Yeeesss!" as if she’s just closed the most important deal of the fiscal year.
"The unique thing about filmmaking is it’s a very plastic medium," says Morton. "Everything is changing constantly. I don’t think there are enough people who exploit its pliability, and that’s what I try and do—let unexpected or interesting things happen."
The M Word allows the viewer to feel like a voyeur; we are sitting just outside the glass-enclosed office, watching the deal go down. According to Morton, the Sony HD camera enabled him to really explore this unobtrusive style of filmmaking. "Shooting in HD is great if you’re working closely with actors because film is so expensive; you’re constantly aware of how much film is being used so you’re stopping and starting the camera, which interrupts the actors’ performance," he says. "But with HD, you can just let the cameras run, and after a while the actors become completely unaware that they’re being filmed and you get a different kind of performance that way—which I like."
