Donning his best tie, a young man hopes to impress during a job interview. But the talking stain on his shirt proves to be a major distraction to his potential boss in a :30 commercial for Tide-to-Go titled “Interview.”
Created by Saatchi & Saatchi, New York, and directed by Calle Astrand, who is represented by London’s Dab Hand Media, the humorous spot won a Silver Lion in the film category at the recent Cannes International Advertising Festival and finds two men–interviewer and interviewee–sitting across from each other at a desk.
“So tell me about yourself,” the interviewer says.
The interviewee proceeds to talk about how organized he is and how he surpassed all of his goals at his previous job. However the interviewer barely takes notice of what the guy says, instead focusing his attention on the stain on his shirt.
The stain has really taken on a life of its own–it actually talks, spewing a bunch of mumbo jumbo while the interviewee is trying to be heard.
The spot ends with a two-shot of the men and the tagline “Silence the Stain.”
While the situation is over the top, it speaks to a real issue–the fact that a stain on one’s clothing can get in the way and make a person look silly, according to Saatchi & Saatchi Executive Creative Director Leo Premutico.
“It’s like spinach between someone’s teeth,” added Jan Jacobs, also an executive creative director at Saatchi. (The rest of the creative team at Saatchi was comprised of copywriters Nathan Frank and Pete Albores and art director Dan Lucey.)
Astrand saw the humor in the situation and signed on to direct. “It was a good idea. The script was simple, and I knew I could make a good film out of it,” Astrand said.
After casting actors Bryan Carney as the boss and Rory O’Sullivan as the job applicant in New York, Astrand and his crew, which included DP Morten Tiden, headed to Newark, N.J., to shoot in a real office at Newark Town Hall. Of course, Astrand could have built a set on a soundstage, but the director felt working on location in an actual office would force everyone to work more creatively given that there are adjustments that need to be made when an environment isn’t created to specifications from scratch.
Astrand also worked sans a hard and fast script, instead feeding the boss lines and allowing the interviewee to adlib his answers. “We tried to make it as natural as possible, which was great fun,” Astrand said. “We got a lot of good material.”
Refreshing pause
Jacobs said the dailies from the shoot were the funniest he’d ever seen because of the long pauses in the conversation. “Literally, the interviewer and the [interviewee] would just sit there and stare at each other. It’s rare that you see directors just let the camera run for 20 seconds with people just staring at each other,” Jacobs said, noting, “There were so many great pauses to work with [in the edit].”
Dan Maloney of The Whitehouse, New York, edited “Interview,” working with Astrand on a first cut before the agency stepped in. “I wanted to be part of the edit,” Astrand shared. “We cut for two-and-a-half or three days, then the agency continued to edit, and at the end we were quite near the director’s cut. They just made some changes in the end shot.”
Premutico praised Maloney for “really just letting it play out. It’s not a very cutty spot. It’s not an editor trying to own the spot.”
Star stain
The real star of the spot has to be the stain. So how was the talking stain created? One might assume it was a CG character, but Astrand used a much more rudimentary technique–making a stain on a piece of cloth, folding the cloth to make a mouth and employing a puppeteer to make the stain’s mouth move. Later, the stain was added to the interviewee’s shirt in post by the artisans at Framestore-CFC in London and New York.
Premutico said the stain works as a character “because it doesn’t try very hard. The stain could have visually taken a much bigger and funnier personality with all of the technology we have at our disposal now. But, for us, it was funnier if it was a situation where you could experience it for real with your own eyes.”
The voice of the stain is that of a Swedish actor friend of Astrand. The decision to use a Swedish actor–Astrand is a native of Sweden, by the way–was inspired by the Swedish chef from The Muppet Show, according to the director. As you’ll recall, no one could ever understand what the chef was saying.
“I always ask people I work with, ‘Does Swedish really sound like that?’ And they say, ‘Yes,’ ” Astrand shared with a laugh.
For now, “Interview,” which broke in local markets and will soon start running nationally, is airing only on television, but there is talk of bringing it to mobile devices, Premutico said, noting that given the portable nature of the Tide-to-Go product, it would make sense.
Meanwhile, this may not be the last we see of the talking stain–it is possible that the character may pop up in other commercials.
