In the commercial business, music composers are often behind-the-scenes kind of people. Sure, some may play in bands that they invite their friends to see on Saturday night, but for the most part, when it comes to advertising, they’re faceless artisans.
Recently, however, Taylor Mclam, a composer at Crushing Music, New York, found himself in the odd position of being in front of the camera, starring in "Miracle," a Verizon spot out of McGarry Bowen, New York, which was directed by Leslie Dektor of Dektor Film, Hollywood.
It all started with the 1980s hit, "All I Need Is A Miracle," by Mike and the Mechanics. The song is about a guy who treats his girlfriend badly and then laments the fact that she’s gone. But in our modern world of endless wireless technology, McGarry Bowen knows that one doesn’t need a miracle to get the girl back. All a guy needs is Verizon’s vast array of telecommunication services—and a really great song.
The :60 opens with Mclam strumming his guitar with some of his fellow band members. He attempts to call his ex-girlfriend several times, but she refuses to pick up the phone—he winds up leaving 17 messages. Thinking that he can win her back with a song, Mclam tries a modern-day serenade, singing an updated version of "All I Need Is A Miracle" into her answering machine. When that doesn’t work, he sends her a fax with the words "I’m sorry" scrawled across the page. When that doesn’t work, he e-mails her photos—using his Verizon e-mail account.
The scenes are interspersed with flashback footage of Mclam and his onscreen girlfriend fighting, and a montage of the brooding Mclam, among other things, lounging in the bathtub with his guitar, perhaps composing a love ballad. Just when it looks like all is lost, the girl shows up at his door, looking expectant, hopeful and most importantly, forgiving. The Verizon tag, "Make progress every day," appears at the spot’s conclusion.
"Miracle" is the first ad to air in a three-spot package via McGarry Bowen, an agency that opened last September and won imaging and branding duties for Verizon in November ’02. According to Hunter Murtaugh, executive music director at McGarry Bowen, who worked with creative director Gordon Bowen on the campaign, each commercial deploys a popular song to drive the story line, which highlights Verizon’s various offerings. In the case of "Miracle," Mclam had as much to do with the commercial’s story as the song itself.
Several arrangers and songwriters were contacted to create an updated version of "All I Need Is A Miracle." The agency felt that because it was a song that most people know and it tells a great story, a little re-tooling could make it work very well in a spot. Mclam, a self-taught musician who admittedly favors rock over other music genres, pitched in with a modern rock arrangement for which he also sang lead vocals. It was an immediate hit with the agency, and Murtaugh began to think that it might be worth having Mclam audition for the lead part in the ad. "I thought, ‘[Mclam] is singing the song, he did all the arrangements, he plays the guitar, he’s gorgeous to look at, he’s been in a band. He’s perfect for it,’" relates Murtaugh.
At the encouragement of Murtaugh, Mclam went on a casting call in New York and was surprised when he got called back for an audition in Los Angeles. "At first they had told me that the commercial was going to be music video-esque, so I was like, ‘I can do this,’ " recalls Mclam. "But when I got to the casting call in L.A., I thought I was so out of my league. They had me doing monologues and this real acting stuff. And, of course, as I walk out, there’s four perfect-looking L.A. dudes waiting to go in and I thought, ‘I don’t really know.’ "
This wasn’t the first time Mclam had been in front of a camera. Between the ages of four and 13, Mclam appeared in some 50 television and print ads before growing tired of the business. Now, it seems that his life has come full circle. He attended the University of Colorado, Boulder, where he studied—as he put it—snowboarding. After graduating, he joined a friend’s hard rock band on the Atlantic Records label called Orange Nine Millimeter, playing bass and then guitar. He wrote songs and toured with the group for four years, opening up for the likes of Korn and Kid Rock. During that time, Mclam met Murtaugh, who introduced him to Joey Levine, president of Crushing, where Mclam has now been composing for three years. The recent acting gig has brought him right back to where he began. "Somehow, my life always leads back to advertising," Mclam jokes.
When it became clear that Mclam would be the one to play the part, the agency creatives and directors began building the story around the fact that he’s a musician. Dektor shot for three days at multiple locations over the course of a week, causing Mclam to feel a little trepidation. In the end, however, he deferred to the guidance of Dektor and Bowen, who helped him rise to the challenge. "I learned pretty quickly to trust Leslie Dektor," relates Mclam. "He’d tell me to get in the bathtub with the guitar and I’m like, ‘But that would never happen.’ Then when I saw the dailies at the end of the day, I was like, ‘Now I know why you’re doing that because that looks awesome.’ "
The whole experience has whetted Mclam’s appetite for acting, and he’s since acquired an agent and has been on a few more casting calls. After a recent audition for a Bud Light spot, Mclam was reminded of how hard the acting business can be. "I walk in and there’s seventy-five guys and I’m wondering what you have to do to make yourself stand out from these seventy-five guys, so the reality is that it’s tough," he says. "For right now, it’s just fun. I don’t think I could ever take it as seriously as I take my music and if it becomes stressful or starts taking away from my music, I’ll put my music first."
