If you didn’t listen closely, you’d swear it was a real TV newscast. There’s the rousing news theme, followed by anchors who are discussing a breaking news story. And it’s all treated with the intense seriousness typical of local television news. A breathless reporter is broadcasting live from Donny Osmond’s house, where the singer is being questioned concerning the mysterious death of his … goldfish. The "broadcast," designed for movie theatres, is not a breaking story at all, but a spot called "Goldie," part of a campaign called "Get The Real News" for The Los Angeles Times, out of Ground Zero, Marina del Rey, Calif.
Offbeat? Yes, but the ad is typical of much of the work of its director, Stephen Kessler, a principal in bicoastal Promiseland, whose commercials mix the sardonic humor of David Letterman with the mock documentary approach of guerrilla filmmaker Michael Moore. For instance, "Subway," for RSL.com out of DCA Advertising, New York, finds a pair of riders on a speeding train communicating telepathically about information they see in a newspaper. His recent spots "Oxygen," "Drive-In" and "Cruising" for Kia Motors of America via davidandgoliath, Los Angeles, feature offbeat humor and unique characters.
Kessler may choose comedy spots, but he takes his work very seriously. "My whole thing is to do great, original work," he says. "Not to do what was funny six months or forty years ago, but to give campaigns their own identity and still always have them end up recognizable as my work. [What] I’m most known for is comedy. One of the things I try to do is to not work with the same actors who walk through one hundred different commercials. I try to find serious actors and interesting real people."
Originally from New York City, Kessler graduated from Stanford University, Palo Alto, Calif., where he majored in English. He began as a copywriter, initially at J. Walter Thompson, New York, and later at Chiat/Day (now TBWA/Chiat/Day), Los Angeles, where he wrote a book called Chiat/Day: The First Twenty Years. "I never thought directing was in reach for me, recalls Kessler. "I wanted to be a writer. Then, when I saw what other directors were doing with what I wrote, I thought I could do better."
Kessler made the switch from the agency side to directing in 1988, teaming with director Marc Chiat in Red Dog Films, Los Angeles. (Chiat eventually shifted over to Green Dot Films, Santa Monica, for a brief stay, but has since returned to his Red Dog Films.) "I was a copywriter who had become a director, which wasn’t as cool then as it is now," he says. Still, he was itching to do more, and left Red Dog in ’89 to helm spots through his own shop, the now shuttered Mambo Films. He then moved on to bicoastal HSI Productions, in ’91.
At the time of aligning with HSI, Kessler’s personal star was on the rise. In ’92, he was a Directors Guild of America (DGA) nominee for best commercial director of ’91, based on six :30s: Giant Eagle Markets’ "Tea Time" and "Romeo & Juliet," out of Doner, Southfield, Mich.; MasterCard’s "Directions" via Lintas: Worldwide, New York (now Lowe Lintas & Partners); "House" for Tony’s Pizza, out of Bozell, Minneapolis; "Trapeze" for Jack In The Box via Cohen/Johnson, Los Angeles; and MCI’s "Joe College" for Messner Vetere Berger McNamee Schemetterer/Euro RSCG. Soon after, Kessler was nominated for a ’92 Academy Award for Birch Street Gym, a live-action short film he directed.
Snapple guy
From ’93 to ’96, he gained a great deal of attention for directing a series of spots, such as "Float" and "Mascot," in Snapple’s "Wendy" campaign, out of Kirshenbaum Bond & Partners, New York. The cinéma vérité-style spots were shot on 16mm and blown up to 35mm. "That wasn’t done at the time," he recalls. "It was considered almost amateurish to use 16mm, but a lot of very successful campaigns followed it [using that technique]. I’m really happy about that work."
Kessler started directing features in ’97 with Vegas Vacation and The Independent. "I love making features," he notes. "They require a different discipline. But I won’t give up commercials. I would be an idiot not to appreciate how much they’ve done for me."
In late ’99, he left HSI to launch Promiseland. "I wanted to open my own boutique," states Kessler, "a creative place where I could still do work for my big clients and where it could still be economically feasible to do cool small stuff." He notes that he intends to add additional directors to the shop’s roster at some point in the future.
To Kessler, directing a successful commercial is all about collaboration. "A lot of times, I get brought in while things are being conceptualized," he notes. "Usually, the best time to bring me in is just before or after the spot has been sold, a period when the client is still flexible. It’s not about rewriting—just about bringing new shapes out of it to make it my work. I think I’m more attuned conceptually to the process because I worked at Chiat/Day as a copywriter."
In the aforementioned Kia ad "Oxygen," a man and woman are having a fight over another woman. "Lisa, I can explain!" he calls after her as she makes a beeline for his Kia. "I wasn’t kissing the girl! She was choking! She just needed oxygen!" As the voiceover explains the durability of the Kia car, Lisa dumps trash all over it and tries to wreck it, yelling back, "I’m not trashing it! I’m just giving it oxygen!" Originally, the spot was to end there, but Kessler suggested a different finale for the ad: a final shot of the man talking to the other woman, who is seen blue in the face and choking. (The version with the choking woman hasn’t aired, but is on the agency’s reel.)
To Kessler, such efforts are just part of his job: doing the best he can to be original and funny. "I really believe that in comedy, now is the time to push the limits of what you can do in commercials," he explains. "I want to make things that are truly funny, not just ‘commercial’ funny. It’s John Belushi versus gentle Carol Burnett. I want to be fresh. You know, if I see everyone zigging, I try to zag."µ
