There are five nominees for the Directors Guild of America (DGA) award for best commercial director of 2001. The quintet of directors comprises: Joe Pytka of Venice. Calif.-based PYTKA; Craig Gillespie of bicoastal Morton Jankel Zander (MJZ); Joe Public—a.k.a. Adam Cameron and Simon Cole—of bicoastal Headquarters; Bob Kerstetter, co-founder/creative director of agency Black Rocket Euro RSCG, San Francisco, who occasionally directs ads through bicoastal Tool of North America; and Baker Smith of Harvest, Santa Monica. Each spot helmer was nominated on the basis of an array of ads, and the spots were created and crafted by a number of people, including agency creatives, the director, the music composer and/or sound designer. Prevalent among the editors were several who have been profiled by SHOOT in the past, including Chuck Willis, Clayton Hemmert, Sherri Marguiles, and Karen Kourtessis of bicoastal Crew Cuts; Michael Saia, Barry Stillwell and Luis Moreno of Jump Editorial, New York; Eric Zumbrunnen of Spot Welders, Venice; Adam Liebowitz of Go! Robot, New York; Hank Corwin of bicoastal Lost Planet; and Tom Muldoon of Nomad Editorial, Santa Moncia. In this week’s Special Report, SHOOT looks at some of the other editors who contributed to the DGA-nominated work.
David Brixton
Owner/editor David Brixton of The Whitehouse, which has offices in Santa Monica, Chicago, New York and London, seems to have a lot in common with directing team Joe Public of Headquarters.
For one, Brixton and Joe Public are native Brits, who started out working in London and moved to the U.S. to further their careers. Each has achieved a high level of success in the commercial industry. That’s due, in part, to a number of projects—including ReplayTV, Pert Plus, Frosted Flakes and Pennzoil—on which they have collaborated over the last two years.
In fact, one of Brixton and Joe Public’s collaborations—on the Toyota Corolla spot "Subtitles," out of Saatchi & Saatchi LA, Torrance, Calif.—helped earn the pair a DGA nomination. The directing duo’s other entries were 7-Up’s "Calendar," "Captive Audience" and "Singers," out of Young & Rubicam (Y&R), New York; and Cingular Wireless’ "Touchdown Dance School" and Visa USA’s "Baby Talk," both via BBDO New York.
Brixton is gratified by the DGA’s recognition of Joe Public, whom he calls "very worthy contenders. I’m very happy for Joe Public because I think they’ve contributed a lot to the body of advertising," he notes. "They’re not afraid of challenging the norms and speaking their minds."
Brixton’s first collaboration with Joe Public came two years ago, when the editor cut the aforementioned ReplayTV project, which was done via Publicis & Hal Riney, San Francisco. "Joe Public had just moved to the U.S. and were more used to the English way of working," recalls Brixton, referring to the process by which the director commissions the editor, who remains involved all the way through the project. "They had seen my reel and liked it because, they said, it showed restraint."
According to Brixton, many think comedy is easy to cut because it has a definite structure, but he believes it’s one of the harder disciplines to edit. "It’s all about tone, comic timing and performance," he explains. "It’s a matter of knowing when to pay off the joke, and not cram every joke into the spot. It can be about the shots you left out, and letting the spot breathe. Joe Public recognized that while mine wasn’t the flashiest reel, it worked on the highest level."
Toyota’s "Subtitles" illustrates this restraint. Set on the streets of Rome, it consists of vignettes of different driving scenes, which at first glance appear to be acts of road rage, Italian style. People gesture vigorously and yell (in Italian) at fellow motorists. But the subtitles explain that this isn’t a litany of expletives; instead, it’s praise for the features on the new Corolla.
As one Corolla driver speeds up alongside a taxi in preparation to pass, the cabbie shouts angrily; the subtitle translation is, "Love your Corolla." The driver delivers a loud retort—his subtitle: "It’s got a VVT-i engine." In another exchange, a Corolla driver leans out his window to tell an attractive woman in the opposite lane, "I have a sport package," for which she slaps his face—no subtitle needed. The spot ends with a voiceover stating that the Toyota Corrolla is loved by people all over the world.
Brixton says the better part of a month was spent editing "Subtitles." Ironically, he adds, while the visuals came together fairly quickly, more work was needed to refine the original translations, which did not enhance the humor of the spots. The agency team, Joe Public and Brixton brainstormed to come up with many versions of subtitles. Among them, they devised an entirely new set of translations for the spot.
"I look at it as a fluid process," comments Brixton. "A script is like a road map, and then you hire a director. And I believe it’s vital for editors to explore the possibilities. The first time around, I show the agency what I believe is the best possible spot—and it may be something different from what’s expected."
One of Brixton’s first industry jobs was runner during a holiday period at London post house Complete Video; later he become an assistant. He shifted to the recently shuttered DGW, starting as an assistant, then becoming a full-fledged editor.
In ’95, Chris Tardio and Charles Day—formerly manager of broadcast production and a senior producer, respectively, at DDB Chicago—called on Brixton to help them launch their editing shop, The Lookinglass Company, Chicago. "I thought it was a great opportunity to be involved in a company from the ground up," the cutter recalls.
Brixton quickly established himself in the U.S., and in ’97 moved to the West Coast to open Lookinglass’ Santa Monica branch. Last year, London-based The Whitehouse merged with Lookinglass, giving the latter a desired London outpost; the newly merged entity—operating under The White House banner—also opened a New York office. "I definitely feel blessed," says Brixton of his career. "Even though I know there’s an element of talent involved—you won’t keep getting hired unless you have talent—when I consider all the opportunities I’ve had, I feel I’ve led a charmed life."
—Kathy DeSalvo
Jonathan Del Gatto
Listing his accomplishments doesn’t come naturally to editor Jonathan Del Gatto of Terminal, Santa Monica, even though those achievements are impressive. Last year, he partnered in the opening of editorial shop Terminal and cut "KISS Reunion" for Holiday Inn Express via Fallon Minneapolis—one of the spots that helped earn helmer Craig Gillespie of MJZ a nomination for the DGA Award. (The other spots he was nominated for are: and Citibank’s "College Tuition" and "Delivery Room," both out of Fallon; and Ameritech’s "Plumber" and SBC’s "Welcome Wagon," both out of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners (GS&P), San Francisco.)
For Del Gatto, it’s all about doing what he loves most: editing. Any style, any length, just as long as he’s cutting. "Truthfully, I like doing all styles," Del Gatto says. "Most of the time there’s good stuff in all the arenas, and it’s fun to do it all. … [Editing is about] trying to affect people, trying to make them feel a certain way."
No matter how much Del Gatto loves the process, he doesn’t believe in letting the editing get in the way of the story. "What I like to do with editing is let the film tell the story rather than the editing tell the story," he explains. "Unfortunately, in an editorial reel that’s a nuance that often gets overlooked."
Del Gatto’s healthy respect for the medium is probably one reason that he’s so successful; his non-intrusive touch is in all his work, and not least of all in "KISS Reunion." The spot features a band that at first glance appears to be the rock group KISS, which has just played a sold-out arena show. Turns out these musicians are impersonators, the implication being that because they were smart enough to choose Holiday Inn Express, imitating KISS isn’t a problem.
Del Gatto describes the Holiday Inn work as enjoyable and collaborative. "I had edited a prior campaign, so I knew the Fallon creatives really well, as did Craig, so it was collaborative that way," Del Gatto relates. "I had worked with Craig on numerous other projects before; it’s easy when you know people. … Like every job, it was time consuming and meticulous—just paying attention to every detail and going through it and trying to tell a story as best we could."
As proud as he is of his work on the spots, Del Gatto isn’t guessing at a winner of the DGA Award. "Who knows who will win," he laughs. "I’m not too competitive by nature. … [All the nominees] are good."
Del Gatto came to editing in a somewhat roundabout way. He says he got interested in "communication and filmmaking and art" back in 1985, in New York City where he kicked around as a musician. Then he started a job as a tape operator at Manhattan Transfer (now R!OT Manhattan), and became hooked. "I loved it," he remembers. "I met amazing people and saw them do some amazing things with editing." Eventually, he moved up to being a nighttime online editor, and says after that he "floated around" until he was hired in ’91 by Larry Bridges, owner/editor of Red Car, which now has offices in New York, Santa Monica, San Francisco, Dallas, Chicago and Toronto. After eight years with Red Car—he worked out of many of the firm’s offices—Del Gatto decided it was time to open his own shop.
In January ’01 he launched Terminal, Santa Monica, along with partners/editors Lee Cowan and Mark Goodman, and partner/executive producer Michael Gresch. "It was a natural progression, I think," notes Del Gatto. "I had loved working at Red Car and the challenges of that as an employee, but I really wanted to do my own thing and make an environment that reflected more who I was—the kind of rooms I like to sit in … and also to be able to direct a company towards interesting projects beyond advertising, that sort of stuff."
True to his vision, Terminal has edited a wide array of projects, though it remains focused on commercials. "Terminal is singularly an editorial place; we edit and we like to just focus on editing and try to apply that kind of storytelling to all different stuff," Del Gatto explains. "We’ve fooled around with a lot of live club visuals, a fair amount of music videos, and we’ve done a fair amount of films that have made their way into Sundance in the last year."
Ultimately, Del Gatto isn’t after accolades. "I don’t think I’d want to have the same profile the directors have to have," he says. "I like being just an editor."
—Tracey Middlekauff
Bob Frisk
Some strange ads are getting recognition from the DGA. Among the weirdest are a campaign featuring olive-capped fingers on everyone from children to old men, and a spot in which a woman’s best friend is a mannequin. Although these premises may seem wildly different, they do have two things in common: The campaign and the spot were cut by editor Bob Frisk, co-owner/editor at Phoenix Editorial Services, San Francisco, and are out of agency Black Rocket Euro RSCG, San Francisco. (Phoenix’s other owners are executive producer Lisa Hinman and editor John Crossley.)
Frisk cut the ads for different directors. The fruit-handed people comprise the three-spot campaign for Musco Olives, which earned Bob Kerstetter his DGA nomination. The threesome—"Worker," "Orphanage" and "Birds"—garnered Kerstetter a nomination from the DGA. Lucky magazine’s "Cheryl ‘n Me," in which a woman’s friend and shopping companion is a mannequin, was one of the ads that led to director Baker Smith’s nomination. (The other spots that earned Smith his nomination are: FOX Sports’ "Nail Gun," for TBWA/Chiat/Day, San Francisco; Toshiba’s "Asylum," out of DGWB Advertising, Irvine, Calif; Heineken’s "Birth of Scratching," through Lowe, New York. ("Cheryl ‘n Me" and "Birth of Scratching" were produced through Tate & Partners, Santa Monica, Smith’s roost prior to Harvest.)
Frisk, who has been editing for 17 years, is excited about two examples of his handiwork having a chance for victory at the DGA ceremony. "It would be great to see one of these directors walk away with the award for those spots," he relates. "They’re both deserving."
"Orphanage," one of the Musco ads, plays like a twisted version of the Broadway hit Annie: A small boy sits in the office of an orphanage director. The administrator tries to explain to the youngster as delicately as possible that his chances of being adopted are slim because he has olives for fingertips. But just as the boy’s predicament seems hopeless, he watches from the office window as a car with prospective parents pulls up to the curb; the woman exiting the car shares the boy’s "deformity." The message "Believe in Olive Fingers" flashes across the screen, followed by a shot of a Musco’s Black Pearl jar, which features the company’s logo: olive-tipped fingers.
The straight-faced sincerity on display inside the wacky world of Musco Olives demanded strong dramatic performances from the actors in "Orphanage" and the similarly themed "Worker" and "Birds." Luckily for Frisk, he received outstanding footage that made his job easy, and was able to complete each spot in a week. "From the moment we saw the film, it was exciting because it looked so good—way beyond whatever I had imagined from the scripts," he says. "It’s just great to have miles of usable takes from actors, rather than go through an hour to get five or six seconds."
A few days after receiving the footage, Frisk was able to construct a rough outline of his edit; then Kerstetter came into the process, and the two refined the spots together. With any ad he works on, Frisk typically likes to get the storyboards before the footage is shot, to ensure that all of the visual elements are accounted for in the final product.
Shot in wide screen for theatrical release, "Cheryl ‘n Me" is a chronicle of a woman who doesn’t seem to be self-conscious about the fact that the friend she enjoys shopping with is a mannequin. The spot follows her as she giddily drags the silent Cheryl all over town, but the fun ends when her husband breaks it to her that what she’s doing isn’t exactly normal. A delirious montage of the "women’s" friendship captures them doing everything from riding a carousel to enjoying a beachside campfire that ignites the mannequin’s leg. Her wanderings lead her to Cheryl’s apartment. When Cheryl opens the door, the woman learns that her husband is having an affair with her silent friend. She runs back to the street, where she finds a copy of Lucky magazine at a newsstand, and realizes she has a new shopping companion.
The spot’s :90 length was a luxury to which Frisk is unaccustomed. He is used to tackling the challenge of condensing action into a :30 or :60, which allows for little extraneous material. "You have to get rid of absolutely everything except that which is essential, and keep focused on that story," explains Frisk. "I think that’s what keeps me from going off track."
Frisk prides himself on editing with a light hand to avoid getting too "cutty." "I’m still a believer in invisible edits," he states. "You just don’t want to jar your audience’s sensibilities. The trick is, how do you jam all that story in there without making it seem hurried?"
—Andrew Wallenstein
Jim Hutchins
Jim Hutchins was a philosophy major at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. And he sees a connection between his studies then and his work now, as an editor at Nomad Editorial, Santa Monica. "I loved to write, and started by being into mathematics and logic," he explains. "I liked using both the logical and the creative portions of the brain. In a sense, you do the same thing as an editor; it’s not that different."
Hutchins edited two of the spots—SBC’s "Welcome Wagon" and Ameritech’s "Plumber," both out of GS&P—that helped director Gillespie land a nomination from the DGA.
In "Plumber," a man receives a phone call in which he is asked to change local phone carriers. "We switched our plumber once," he softly muses aloud. There is a faraway look in his eye. Then there is an abrupt cut to a flashback of the man opening the door to his suburban home. The door explodes off its hinges as gallons of water come cascading out, sweeping him and a passerby onto the street. Cut back to the man on the phone: "You know, I think I’m happy with what I’ve got."
"Welcome Wagon" is also funny, but has a certain subtlety, employing a feel-good, soft-and-fuzzy Hallmark look. In it, a young deaf child tells his mother in sign language that he is a little shy of his new neighbors, including a middle-aged woman who lives next door. The woman, overhearing the little boy’s concerns as verbalized by his mother, goes on the Internet in an attempt to learn sign language via a very fuzzy download. Then she bakes a pie and offers it to the child. Using sign language, she tells the boy what she did, but misspeaks (as subtitles explain). Instead of saying, "I baked this pie for you," she conveys via sign language, "I baked your dog for you." The child runs off in fear, as the announcer declares: "Downloads—faster, smoother, easier. Pacific Bell DSL. From the SBC Global Network. We’re on it."
Both spots were edited as part of larger packages, and were done relatively quickly. As he typically does, Hutchins crafted a first cut on his own. "People stay away from me," he reports, "and I get no input; that way, I don’t get preconceived ideas." After that initial cut, he worked closely with the agency to meet its specifications.
"In both cases, Goodby was very creatively involved," relates Hutchins. "They are more hands-on [than a lot of other agencies]. They had specific things they were looking for. In ‘Welcome Wagon,’ we experimented with different lines for the last joke."
In "Plumber," some material ended up on the cutting room floor. "There was stuff that we ended up not using," Hutchins recalls. "We wanted to make the joke as funny as possible. We had a scene of a birthday party getting washed out, and shots of the guy reacting to the flood; we cut all those and distilled it into one joke. That seemed to have the most impact."
Hutchins is a big believer in collaboration, and enjoys editing because of the give-and-take. "Nomad is a unique environment," he says of the shop, which has six editors. "We all get involved with each other’s projects. There is no sense of competition. We all exchange notes and ideas with each other and spend a lot of time looking at each others’ works-in-progress."
Editing was not a task that Hutchins would have foreseen when he left college. The philosophy major got into the field by chance, having taken a job at Red Car, Los Angeles, as a runner in 1991. He later became an assistant there, working with such Red Car editors as Larry Bridges and Rob Watzke. "I fell into editing. There were not tons of editing companies, and it seemed like a great environment to work in," he says. He spent two years at Red Car before moving on to Superior Assembly Editing Company, Santa Monica, where he was also an assistant. It was at Superior Assembly that Hutchins began cutting a few of his own spots. After two years there, he shifted to Nomad, where he became a full-fledged editor. "When Tom Muldoon [partner/editor] and John Murray [partner/editor] split off [from Superior] and started Nomad, they asked me to come with them," he recalls.
Hutchins, who just finished a four-spot package for E*Trade, out of GS&P, finds himself pegged as a comedy editor. But he feels that isn’t such a bad thing, believing most of the best spots involve humor in one way or another. He has worked primarily on spots and is fairly content with where he is, eschewing longform. "I like the creative process in commercials," he explains. "You’re getting to work with different people. I like editing, too. It’s a nice mix of creativity of both the right and left sides of the brain."
—Tom Soter
Terry Kaney
For editor Terry Kaney of Avenue, Chicago and Santa Monica, it’s a joy to work on projects directed by Joe Pytka. These include the Disney spot "Pillow Talk" via Leo Burnett USA, Chicago. Pytka’s other entries for this year’s DGA award are New York City Miracle’s "Deli" and "Skating" for BBDO New York, and the Ad Council Childhood Hunger awareness PSA "Ketchup Soup" for Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH), New York
"Joe is a great storyteller, and the best casting director I’ve ever known," says Kaney, whose first collaboration with Pytka was on a Hallmark spot called "Mrs. LaGow’s Gift" for Leo Burnett a number of years ago.
Much of the Pytka work that Kaney has edited is steeped in realism and emotion. "Pillow Talk" is a case in point. The spot lets viewers in on a late-night conversation between a middle-aged husband and wife, who are lying in bed. The woman frets that they may be drifting apart. The man tries to reassure her, telling her that they do still talk. "Not like we used to," she responds wistfully. At spot’s end, the man leans in close to his wife and speaks to her in a Donald Duck voice, making her laugh.
The beauty of that ad, Kaney observes, is that this conversation occurs between many real-life husbands and wives. "It’s totally relatable," he says. "Every husband and wife who see this spot can relate to it … the idea that ‘What’s wrong with us—we’re drifting apart.’ It’s a quiet, intimate moment. We’ve made it work in the two-minute, ninety- and sixty-second formats—that tells me it’s a great idea. I think it’s great that Disney is willing to go with these longer formats where you have the luxury of more time and can develop emotions."
In Kaney’s opinion, such performance-driven spots are rewarding to work on. "It’s more challenging than quick-cutting together eye-candy that you remember for thirty seconds," he observes. "Emotional advertising tries to reach a deeper level in viewers. It takes incredible patience to do that work, and a lot of directors don’t have the patience for it. In these types of spots, a pause or a gesture can be just as important as a line of dialogue. Spots like ‘Pillow Talk’ are the ones that stand out and stick with you longer, because they take reality and make the viewer feel something."
In one respect, says Kaney, his job is made easier by working on a Pytka commercial. That’s because the director has a solid understanding of the idea and how the story will be told—and shoots with that in mind. "He’s a joy for an editor because the idea is there. Then throw in his casting and his understanding of what needs to be communicated," Kaney explains. "He’s a quality shooter, whereas a lot of other directors will shoot quantity: They’ll shoot a lot of film to make up for lack of an idea. With Joe, I’m not hung up on figuring out what he’s trying to do or what story he’s telling."
Kaney began his career at the now defunct FilmFair. After deciding that production wasn’t for him, he shifted to the company’s post division, where he worked for two years as an assistant. He later shifted to Editors Choice—which has since closed—spending four years as an assistant and five years as an editor.
Some 16 years ago, Kaney joined Avenue. In his tenure there, he has seen the firm grow from nine people to around 60, and he’s worked with nearly every agency in Chicago, including DDB, J. Walter Thompson, FCB and Ogilvy & Mather. One of his most frequent clients is Leo Burnett. In addition to Pytka, Kaney has had the opportunity to work on spots helmed by such directors as Steve Horn of Steve & Linda Horn Inc., New York; James Gartner of bicoastal Gartner; Bob Giraldi of bicoastal Giraldi Suarez Productions; and Kinka Usher of House of Usher, Santa Monica.
While he remains based in Chicago, Kaney has traveled to cut jobs out of Avenue’s Santa Monica office, too. Although his involvement on projects varies, he says he typically starts working once the footage is shot, such as his collaborations with Pytka.
To date, Kaney has collaborated on a long-distance basis with Pytka, via phone conversations and sending cuts back and forth. The editor is now working on a package of four Pytka-directed Disney spots. Eventually, he hopes to meet the director in person, notes Kaney, adding, "I’ve heard he’s quite an interesting character."
Kaney is pulling for Pytka to win the DGA award: "I think it’s very well deserved. There’s nobody better that does what he does. He makes a lot of creative guys and editors look good."
—Kathy DeSalvo
David Koza
David Koza, editor at MacKenzie Cutler, New York, has some news to share: He’s recently been made a partner at the editing house. "It shows a commitment from MacKenzie Cutler to me, as well as from me to the company," Koza enthuses. "It feels good. It gives me more of a stake in the entire scope of the company, and in the day-to-day operations."
While his new title means more responsibility, Koza will, of course, continue to do what he does best, which is edit. His current reel includes the Heineken spot "Birth of Scratching," which helped director Baker Smith nab a nomination for a DGA award.
Koza has been working with Smith on Heineken ads for about three years now. Done via Lowe New York (Heineken recently shifted its account to D’Arcy, New York), "Birth of Scratching" centers on a DJ spinning records at a club. The crowd isn’t inspired by what it hears, so the DJ grabs a new disc. In the process, he spills a bottle of Heineken all over the record that is already playing. Everyone laughs and points as the desperate DJ grabs a towel and tries to wipe the beer off the still-spinning record. In the process, he unintentionally makes some scratching sounds, and the crowd digs it. When everyone starts moving to the beat, the DJ realizes he is on to something and goes with it. A super reading, "March 8, 1982. The Birth of Scratching" appears on the screen as the party continues. Then the tagline, "It’s all about the beer," pops up.
"When it is a Heineken ad, I know the concept is going to be great," shares Koza. "And Baker’s stuff is so well thought out and funny. He gets such great performances. It is always exciting to work with him."
This ad in particular was rewarding because of the positive reaction it received. "Not just in the industry," Koza points out. "When people ask me what I’ve been working on, and I mention this, they’ve seen it. It helps that it broke during the Grammys [last year]."
Koza says that the biggest challenge for him on this job was the sound. "I had to see how we could take an erroneous scratch and turn it into a musical track, all in the space of thirty seconds," he explains. "You need to find solutions fast, and ones that work within the context of a spot."
Like much of his work, "Birth of Scratching" is humorous. "I’d say we’re doing a lot of comedy work," Koza reports. "I can’t really complain about it, because it seems to be the most memorable work currently out there."
Whether a spot is visual and effects oriented, or comedic and dialogue based, Koza is interested in the job as long as it has a solid concept. The editor—a Salem, Mass., native who studied mass communication at Boston University—learned to appreciate a good idea when he landed a job as an in-house editor at Chiat/Day (now TBWA/Chiat/Day), New York. There his most memorable work included a series of ads for Reebok that played during three different Super Bowl games.
"I got a real understanding from the agencies’ perspective of how an idea gets developed and how directors get picked," recalls Koza. "There is a lot at stake when you do a commercial. So many things have to go right. I think you have to appreciate the process that brought that commercial to you before it was even filmed."
Having soaked up all the knowledge he could at TBWA/Chiat/Day for nine years, Koza joined Ian MacKenzie Editorial in ’96. "I don’t just jump around," Koza states. "I think about what I’m doing, and it was time for me to take it to the next level." (Not long after Koza came onboard, MacKenzie joined forces with editor Gavin Cutler, and the company was renamed MacKenzie Cutler.)
After nearly six years with MacKenzie Cutler, Koza reports that he remains challenged and satisfied with his work. Asked if he is interested in moving on to longform projects some day, he says he is happy cutting commercials and being involved in the advertising industry. "It’s great fun, especially when new footage comes in," he observes. "You want to see what it’s going to be like and how it is going to take shape."
As for how he works, Koza likes to look at the dailies and cut a spot by himself before getting input from a director. "It becomes more of a collaboration with the agency after that," he explains. "It’s all about collaboration."
Of course, pressure is involved in his job. Like all editors, he often finds himself working on tight deadlines. But Koza thrives on the madness. "I really enjoy being at the end of the process," he concludes, "being the person who brings it all together."
—Christine Champagne
