Sometimes the idea is great, but the timing is lousy. McCann-Erickson, Washington, D.C., found itself in that predicament when the creatives in the office pitched an idea for two branding spots for Pricesaroundtheworld.com that would feature daredevils performing death-defying stunts. The Web site provides comparative-pricing information and narrow-casting services, so the purpose of the spots was to show that everyone has his price—including daredevils who make a living sticking their heads in alligators’ mouths or scaling skyscrapers.
The company loved it, the only caveat being that they wanted the spots on air by November. That proved to be a problem, says Greg Johnston, creative director of the Washington, D.C., office of McCann-Erickson. Not only was the agency given the go on production in October, but the SAG/AFTRA strike against advertisers was in its sixth month, and McCann-Erickson had no desire to cross picket lines. "You had to go through many different avenues and ways to get production done [during the strike]," relates Johnston. "McCann-Erickson is a signatory, and we back the unions. My personal feeling was, we didn’t want to do anything that wasn’t the right thing to do."
Faced with an implausible deadline, in the midst of the strike—and without the option of going overseas—Johnston decided to go with stock footage. He directed Greg Loser, who is a full-time freelance producer at the shop, to check out the stock archive houses to see what was available.
Four weeks later, the agency had finished "Tightrope" and "Cannonball"—both :30 comedy spots comprising entirely stock footage, and graphics created by design and editorial house Beehive, New York. "Cannonball" features 1920s vintage black-and-white shots of a daredevil with more chutzpah than sense, running up the barrel of a large cannon, climbing inside, being shot through the air into a net and springing down to flash the camera a wide grin. As the human cannonball prepares for the stunt, and flies through the air, graphic tags created by Beehive point out the items that he needs to make the stunt work—like grease and aspirin. In "Tightrope," a man cavorts on a wire strung across a gorge, while supered images remind the viewer that insoles and deodorant are necessary to make it across and back safely and odor free. Beehive completed the illusion with graphic placards reminiscent of the dialogue cards in old silent movies. The voiceover is also carefully crafted to recreate the 100-m.p.h. staccato delivery style of old newsreels.
"We didn’t want to be too serious about this [concept], because you can get maudlin," Johnston explains. "We wanted to do something fun."
Loser initially searched the Internet for footage before requesting reels from the New York houses The Image Bank, F.I. L.M. Archives, and Archive Films, as well as from Film Bank, Burbank, Calif. (The Image Bank and Archive Films are in the Seattle-headquartered Getty Images family of footage houses, and Film Bank is a part of the bicoastal/international Sekani group of stock suppliers.) "I probably had seven or eight VHS tapes we were looking at, each an hour long of stunt after stunt after stunt," recalls Loser.
While the search began on the Internet, the final decisions were made from compilation reels. We [looked at the] reels because there was a quality factor we wanted to maintain," Johnston notes, pointing out that "the footage was [old] but… we wanted to have an antique look. And we wanted to make sure you could see what was happening, [so] we had … the tapes sent to us here and looked at them on a big forty-three-inch monitor. It helped us decide how we were going to treat it."
Johnston and Loser eventually settled on the human cannonball and tightrope walker supplied by F.I. L.M. Archives and Archive Films, respectively. The agency chose those particular sequences, says Loser, because the footage was exciting and contained pre- and post-stunt shots that were necessary to make the concept work. "On the tightrope-walker we were pretty close [to the original idea]," Loser reports. "Archive Films gave us five or six cuts that I believe totaled twenty-eight or twenty-nine seconds, and we used almost all of that. What helped is that a couple of the companies already had their own reels of stunts put together."
Mark Trost, president of F.I.L.M. Archive, is a big believer in putting together compilation reels by subject, and also feels that the Internet will never replace human researchers as the best way to find footage. "The Web is good up to a point, but when you want specific looks, the footage has to adhere to the criteria the client sets," notes Trost. "Searching the Web will give you a basic idea. But when you get into the nitty-gritty of, ‘I want him going from left to right,’ which is something McCann asked for—I don’t think the Web will ever be able to deliver that to the client without humans getting involved."
Anna Donohoe, sales manager for advertising and corporate accounts at Archive Films, agrees. When the request came in from McCann, both Archive Films and F.I.L.M. Archives were able to ship VHS viewing reels within 24 hours. "This was a classic ad agency request," states Donohoe. "They gave use the concept which gave our researchers the freedom to go through our archive and locate footage that matched up. We’re in a position where, when we get a conceptual piece, we’ve already put together what we call compilation tapes. These are popularly requested conceptual things, ranging from crazy stunts to historical decades to anything having to do with early flight."
Like most stock houses, both shops assist clients with obtaining clearances. The tightrope footage went through without a hitch, but a buyout was necessary for the human-cannon footage. "We found out that the guy had a nephew who was still alive and still owned the rights to the footage," recalls Johnston. "He was very good about it, but we had to wait to run the spot until he signed off."
Johnston and Loser then turned the footage over to Beehive, with Warren Dewey, of Warren Dewey Sound Design, Santa Monica, and Daniel Obst of Big Tracks, San Diego, handling the spot’s score.
"It wasn’t difficult at all [working with old stock footage]," says Ada Whitney, creative director at Beehive. "The quality was what it was. The graininess and scratchiness of the footage actually enhance the feel of it."
Editing also wasn’t a problem. "To cut an interesting spot with short bits of footage was challenging," recounts Whitney. "There are only so many revisions you can do."
Beehive did add a blue tint to the footage to bring out detail and enhance what Johnston calls "viewability. The client’s colors are blue and green, and we also wanted to give it a little bit of life and texture."
To create the silent film look for the placards at the end of the spots, Beehive gave the graphics a grainy quality and added scratches and a slight gate-weave animation. The bullet points used to indicate the insoles and grease in "Cannonball" have a more contemporary look to visually clue the viewer that "this stuff was added later. We did it all on the Mac Apple Macintosh with Cinelook," explains Whitney.
Pricesaroundtheworld.com was delighted with the spots, Johnston says, and the agency is currently talking with the client about a series of follow-up spots to cement the branding. But nothing definite has been decided yet. "The dot-com business is going through what we anticipated—meaning the shakeout and fallout are happening," notes Johnston. "Those brands that actually act like brands and do advertising like it’s supposed to be done will survive; and those that don’t, won’t."
