I think kids are the easiest people on the planet to direct," says director Alan Munro of Moving Target, Santa Monica. Munro should know. He’s directed dozens of kids spots for numerous Mattel toys, including Hot Wheels, and such advertisers as Post Cereals and Duracell batteries.
Munro often hears how much harder it is to direct kids than adults, but he disagrees. "I think it’s exactly the opposite," he says. "Anytime you’re dealing with an adult, there’s always this unspoken power game. There’s this notion that directing an actor is sort of like treating him like a child. Adults inherently fight that relationship.
"For kids, what you find immediately is that they’re really comfortable with [being directed]," he continues. "To them, it seems completely natural and normal [to receive directions from an adult]. And kids are much better at hitting invisible marks and holding products in certain ways. You can direct them with the notion of, ‘Let’s make a game out of this.’ They really get into it."
Kraft Foods/Post Cereals’ "VIP" was directed by Munro via Ogilvy & Mather, Los Angeles. The ad promotes Honeycomb Cereal and Tang by way of a Sony sweepstakes tie-in. The spot opens with a kid welcoming his buddies to a party in his bedroom, a colorful place done up like a child’s version of a happening nightclub, complete with velvet rope and adult doorman. At the end of the spot, the doorman asks the young host if two newcomers can join the party. The kid welcomes the pair, an orangutan and the Craveraan animated character featured in previous commercials for Honeycombsawith a high five.
"The big thing about that one, other than doing the tag with the Craver and the orangutan, was trying to make it one continuous transition," says Munro, describing the spot’s seamless flow.
Dealing with the orangutan and animated creature, which were added during postproduction, was nothing new for Munro. The helmer, who has worked as a second unit director on films such as Sleepy Hollow and as a visual effects supervisor on Addams Family Values, has dealt with similar aspects. "Working with a monkey wasn’t that new and different," says Munro. "He was actually harder to get a take out of than I thought he’d be."
"VIP," like many other spots Munro directs, has elements that are added in post. Do kid actors have trouble interacting with, well, nothing? "Generally, they’re good at it," explains Munro, "and with adults it’s usually difficult. If adults are reacting to absolutely nothing and everybody is standing around and staring at them, they’re uncomfortable. Kids are so much better at pretending something’s there."
Toy spots are often revved-up affairs. In order to create high-energy ads, Munro asks himself, " ‘What can we do to imply that the toy is doing a lot more than it really is?’ Obviously a big component of that is having the kid go berserk over the thing," he says. "The more things the toy does, the more passive you can make the kid. The less the toy does, the more you have to let the kid pull the energy of the spot along. It’s always better to have the frame active."
When Munro casts kids, he asks, "Do they get the notion of acting? A lot of times a kid will walk into the casting session and read the line exactly the way everyone was imagining that the line should be read. But then as you work with the kid for a few minutes, you realize that’s the only read that the kid’s got in him," says Munro. "The nature of commercials is when you actually get [on-set] you’re going to do forty takes. You’re going to say, ‘Let’s try a fast one, let’s try a slow one.’ As long as I know the kid I’m working with is directable, that’s what it’s all about."
Hoping to angle his way into directing features, Munro began to helm spots about six years ago, through Open Films (which has since evolved into Culver City, Calif.-based Random/Order). "I saw a lot of commercial directors directing features so I decided that I should try doing the commercial thing myself," he recalls. The director started his own company, Moving Target, about two and a half years ago.
Munro didn’t initially plan to specialize in directing kids spots. However, he does point out the connection between helming children’s commercials and his work as a visual effects supervisor on fantasy-oriented movies like Beetlejuice and The Addams Family. "It ended up being very naturalagetting wedded to doing children’s stuff because so much of it is fantasy, especially doing toy stuff," he says. "That’s all you’re shooting: thirty seconds of kids’ fantasies."
Munro, who is currently working on several Post Cereals tie-in spots, says his commercial and feature work definitely influence each other. "The main thing commercials have taught me is how long one second is," he says. "It can be incredibly long or incredibly short."
