Like his former directing partner Rick LeMoine, Steve Miller has hit the ground in full directorial stride. Since going solo earlier this year, Miller, who directs out of bicoastal/international @radical.media, has helmed a four-spot package for Verizon Wireless and Lowe, New York; two spots for PaperMate via McCann-Erickson, New York; the ad "Morning Ring" for AT&T Wireless, out of Ogilvy & Mather, New York; and a spot called "Piranha" for Nintendo and Leo Burnett USA, Chicago.
And like LeMoine, Miller’s solo work is very much in the real-life, humorous vein that they mined so successfully as the directing team LeMoine/Miller. The PaperMate spots, for example, use humor to illustrate the attachment PaperMate owners have for their pens and mechanical pencils. "Airplane" shows a flight attendant trudging through the rain to track down a former passenger. Upon arriving at his home, we discover that all this trouble was to retrieve a pen the passenger forgot to return. And in "Test," a teacher squirms while a student abuses a borrowed mechanical pencil.
The Verizon spots—"Whack," "Kick," "Pool" and "Demolition"—comically show the pitfalls that await business people who can’t get through on the walkie-talkie function of their cell phones. While they are distracted by an inability to communicate, bad things happen. In "Kick," for instance, a kid on a swing kicks a construction manager who’s trying to get his phone to work.
"The PaperMate and Verizon stuff was very much in line with the work that Rick and I had done as a team," relates Miller. "I approached it the same way. For me, it’s very much about trying to build a real moment, trying to take ideas that are funny and putting them into the context of an actual moment that feels recognizable. That’s where humor works best."
Miller and LeMoine were able to work together as a team for seven years, Miller says, because their sensibilities were so aligned. "The split had nothing to do with a feeling that we needed to get away from each other," he says. "The most pressing issue was the fact that Rick had just had his second child and I was expecting my first. We knew it would be really hard to juggle our schedules. Second, we needed to evolve as creative people, to see how we could develop our solo voices. It was not a traumatic transition."
Miller sees the fact that both directors continue to be represented by @radical.media as confirmation that their style as a team will continue with their solo careers. "What people are going to get with Rick or me as a solo director is what they see on the team reel," he says. "Our voices as solo directors are in line with that team voice."
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Unlike LeMoine, Miller has no plans to explore opportunities to direct feature films, although he counts Stanley Kubrick, the Coen Brothers and David Lynch as influences. "That may seem like a strange grouping, but for me they’re all very skilled storytellers with an amazing ability to conjure atmosphere," he says. "I think the format of advertising is so nice because you’re working in these small chapters of time. You’re completely consumed by each project, sometimes at the expense of other things in your life, like not being in touch with friends and family. Spreading that over six months to a year—I don’t really want to do that. If I do anything longform, I think it will be documentary." For now, Miller is taking some time off to be with his wife and new daughter.
After first hooking up with copywriter LeMoine at Cliff Freeman and Partners, New York, in 1987, art director Miller roamed the world before the two got together again. Stops included Saatchi & Saatchi, London; Chiat/Day, New York; and Chiat/Day/Mojo, New Zealand. Eventually, Miller and LeMoine regrouped as a freelance creative team, and broke into directing with a campaign for ESPN’s NASCAR Ride-Along Program, which dropped unlikely people into NASCAR racers. "That was a dream first project—to be your own agency, be your own creative and then shoot it," Miller says. Next came a documentary-style spot, "Gump Capone," for Nike hockey skates, out of Wieden+ Kennedy, Portland, Ore. After that, according to Miller, "it just kind of snowballed."
The move into directing was an obvious one for the team, Miller says. "We’re very similar in that we’re both strong conceptually," he explains. "Rick and I always worked very intensely on making the idea work. When the idea is the focus, over technique or stylistic choices, it transitions beautifully into directing because directing really has to be about communicating an idea. We did everything together because when you come up with an idea together you see it through together. We would both talk to actors, both be at the monitor, both work with the agency—just like the creative team at an agency does everything in tandem."
That method prepared both directors for their solo careers. "I can’t say I jumped into it with one hundred percent confidence," Miller says, "but the minute I started, the flow took over and it was fine."
One conscious change Miller has made is to try to look at things from more than one perspective. "That’s what Rick and I really gave each other—having your point of view and being able to discuss another point of view. As a solo director, I’m aware of having my point of view and looking to see what other ways there are to see this idea."
Sometimes that alternate point of view comes from what Miller calls his biggest influence, the pop culture he takes in while walking around his home base of Manhattan, or whatever urban area he is in. "As you walk through the streets of Manhattan, you are just bombarded by everything," he explains. "As you walk the street in any urban environment, you are informed constantly by different things. Whenever I feel I need to kick-start the process a little bit, I walk the city. I almost always come back with something."
