By Robert Goldrich

In 2010, feature filmmaker John Hillcoat (The Proposition, The Road) made his spot directing debut with Levi’s “To Work” for Wieden+Kennedy, Portland, Ore. The commercial captured the perseverance of the people in Braddock, Pennsylvania, a blue collar town emerging from a brutal recession. With a cast of Braddock residents, “To Work” starts out like a look at yesteryear, spanning the 1830s to 1930s. Then as dawn comes up, viewers begin to see that the pioneers they’re witnessing are real people in a real place and are not only wholly relevant to today, but are in fact today’s people.

The simple yet poignant narration of a girl takes us through the years. She notes, “A long time ago, things got broken here. People got sad and left.”

She observes, though, a silver lining: “Maybe the world breaks on purpose so we have work to do.”

The time for that work is now, articulates the spot which towards its end offers a reworking of the opening shot from the movie The Searchers, one of the most famous frontier vistas in cinema history.

Pushing past the door and onto a Braddock street, the girl tells us, “Some people think there aren’t frontiers anymore. They can’t see how the frontiers are all around us.”

“To  Work” reflects the humanity, spirit and optimism of the townspeople. Hillcoat had a special insight into those folks going into that project in that The Road was shot in Braddock.

Fast forward to this year’s Super Bowl and Hillcoat again taps into the human condition with his direction of real people in Coca-Cola’s “It’s Beautiful,” also out of Wieden+Kennedy.  The :60 shows adults and children from all walks of life and from all over the country singing “America the Beautiful” in multiple languages. The beautifully done spot focuses on what unites us all, which seems a perfect fit for the Super Bowl. In this era of fragmented media, the Super bowl represents a rare, shared experience capturing most of the country’s eyeballs, bringing us together not only for the game and celebrations but also for the commercials.

However, “It’s Beautiful” generated controversy in some circles, with objections over hearing “America the Beautiful” sung in languages other than English. Others took issue with the inclusion of two gay dads in the commercial.

A blog post from former Republican Congressman Allen West read, “If we cannot be proud enough as a country to sing ‘America the Beautiful’ in English in a commercial during the Super Bowl, by a company as American as they come–doggone we are on the road to perdition.”

Fox News Radio host Todd Starnes tweeted, “So was Coca-Cola saying America is beautiful because new immigrants don’t learn to speak English?”

Hillcoat said it was “sad to see how deeply rooted these reactionary views are. Various immigrant communities literally have built and created this country. These negative reactions come out of ignorance about this country’s history. I thought actually the gay couple would get more of a reaction. In the final spot, the depiction of the gay parents is pretty subtle. In my version, it was not so subtle as part of the diversity of the country. ”

Hillcoat found some solace in the push back to the negative reactions. Social media contained much outrage in response to the outrage against the ad. Still, outrage is the antithesis of what “It’s Beautiful” hoped to stir and depict.

Hillcoat–who’s handled by production houses Skunk in the U.S. and Stink in the U.K.–noted that the people in “It’s Beautiful” were all the genuine article. “The iconic Midwest cowboy was just that. The Mexican family was in a Mexican food restaurant they owned. We made it a point to find real people in their real-life situations where they were totally comfortable and just had to be themselves. The spot observes them rather than putting them in some dramatic construct forcing them to behave a certain way. We did the same with Braddock too–it wasn’t storyboarded.”

Cash video
Hillcoat has been spending much time getting to feel the pulse of America through his recent endeavors.

In addition to “It’s Beautiful,” Hillcoat has found himself on another roadtrip across the U.S. for a soon-to-be-released Johnny Cash music video marking an album of his that never got released. The video is for the song “She Used To Love Me A Lot. “On one level, it’s a classic simple, mournful, beautiful love song,” said Hillcoat. “On another level, it’s a song that can be a metaphor for Cash and America, what he was fighting for.”

Cash’s America, observed Hillcoat, was one that “championed the underdogs, people who were being exploited. We all know about his work and concerts in prisons, his feelings about Native Americans, the down and out, and the homeless. He crossed a lot of boundaries as an artist. ‘The Man In Black’ lyrics are what he stood for so we tried to capture this in the video.”

The Cash music video was produced by Skunk, Stink and Rokkit (Stink’s music video arm).

Still, to categorize Hillcoat as solely a real people director–despite his acumen working with them–would be far too confining and inaccurate. His feature filmmaking showcases his work with actors as does much of his other spot work over the years, including a notable job, Jameson’s “Iron Horse,” which chronologically came in-between “To Work” and “It’s Beautiful.” Conceived by TBWAChiatDay, New York, “Iron Horse” opens on John Jameson having breakfast at a restaurant in Ireland in the early 1800s. He comes to the rescue when a steam locomotive, a.k.a. Iron Horse, runs out of control through the Irish countryside. Jameson saves the train’s precious cargo, casks of Jameson Irish Whiskey, as well as a bevy of beautiful female passengers. He also inadvertently prevents a Prussian invasion when the train falls into the ocean below, destroying an oncoming Prussian battleship.

“Iron Horse” was honored in the Production category of the 2013 AICP Show. The spot had Hillcoat hands-on involved in the casting of the actor portraying Jameson. “He gave a great performance,” assessed Hillcoat, adding that when working with actors, “I try to make them as real, believable and truthful as possible.”

MySHOOT Profiles