Even the most cynical amongst us has to be touched by TrueNorth’s hopeful “Inspiration Café.”
Created by New York’s StrawberryFrog and directed by Oscar-winning actress Helen Hunt, who is repped by bicoastal Chelsea for spotwork, the :60, which debuted during the recent Academy Awards telecast, introduces us to a remarkable woman named Lisa Nigro, a former Chicago police officer whose mission in life is to care for the homeless.
As we learn in the documentary-style commercial, Nigro delivered sandwiches to those in need with a little red wagon at first, then she graduated to an automobile and a school bus before opening a Café for the homeless called the Inspiration Café.
One Café has since grown to three, and Nigro also runs job training and housing programs nowadays.
“The magic of the Inspiration Café is to know that you would be missed if you didn’t come. Someone is waiting for you. Someone is pacing the floor for you,” Nigro says in the spot. “That’s the gift of being expected.”
A quick unobtrusive pitch for Frito-Lay’s TrueNorth nut-cluster snacks is then made during the closing seconds of the commercial via a quick product shot accompanied by a voiceover that relates, “Lisa’s true north is serving the homeless with dignity. Ours is simple: turning an ordinary nut into an extraordinary snack.”
One has to ask if the client was hesitant about running commercials–“Inspiration Café” was one of four similarly uplifting spots that broke during the Oscars–that don’t spend much time selling their product. “When you name something TrueNorth, and you define it as pursuing your one true passion in life, it would be a little disingenuous to make such a lofty statement and not showcase these people who are doing amazing things and pursuing their one true passion like you did,” StrawberryFrog creative director Josh Greenspan said, noting that more product-oriented ads are in the media mix as well.
In order to find subjects for the spots that celebrate those following their true north, the company ran a contest, setting up a website through which people could nominate themselves or others. Nigro, a woman with boomer appeal–that’s the demographic TrueNorth is going after–whose story aligned nicely with that of the brand’s, was chosen from nearly 3,000 entries.
Spot debut With an amazing subject to shoot, Hunt, who has directed episodes of Mad About You and the feature film Then She Found Me, made her spot directing debut with “Inspiration Café.” The director wanted Nigro to feel like “part of the team, not some subject that we would manipulate and steal something from,” so she made sure to clue Nigro in as to what she was going for from the get-go.
As for Hunt’s plan, she wanted to hone in on the theme of what it’s like to not be expected. “Lisa talked about what it’s like to not be expected [on a casting tape], which is something that I hadn’t thought about before,” Hunt said. “If you are a homeless person in America, there is no one looking at their watch and worrying because you didn’t show up at the time you said you were going to show up. So I thought, ‘I’m going to go for that, and whatever else happens will be happy accidents along the way.’ “
Hunt and cinematographer Peter Donahue, who shot Then She Found Me, filmed “Inspiration Café” in two and a half days, and some of the most compelling images they captured are the “portraits” they shot of the homeless people who eat at the Café.
“Across the board, from our side to the client side to Helen’s side, that’s our favorite portion of the entire spot,” Greenspan said. “It’s rare that you get to actually look into these people’s eyes, and with these long shots that almost hang on a fraction of a second too long, you’re kind of forced to confront them and really see the faces of the people that are being helped.”
Joy ride While the portraits are quietly riveting, it should be noted that the overall tone of this spot is actually quite joyful. In fact, we see Nigro laughing in the kitchen and smiling with her patrons. “I wanted to make sure I captured that,” Hunt said, noting, “I think some of the people involved were a little nervous about that part of it, and you could certainly do it the wrong way–you know, where everything’s peppy and happy. But I thought for the portraits to land, it would be important that there be a lot of buoyancy in the first half of it.”
Hunt added, “Also, I wouldn’t have done it if it wasn’t true. Lisa really does run around hugging everybody. She is a spirited human being.”
Nigro’s infectious energy and can-do attitude are nicely captured in :60 and :30 versions of “Inspiration Café” edited by Rob Watzke. Hunt has known Watzke, who cuts spots out of Beast Editorial, bicoastal and Dallas, for years.
After giving him some notes on what she wanted in terms of visuals, pacing and music (the final track was ultimately composed by Jimmy Haun of Beta Patrol, Los Angeles), Watzke took a first pass at the spot,
Hunt worked with him to finesse it, then the StrawberryFrog team joined the process.
Hunt is pleased with the two commercials that were fashioned in the end, noting that the agency made sure her voice was heard.
“When it was, ‘Do we go left, or do we go right?,’ they let it go my way,” she shared, “so that I could feel a sense of ownership about the film.”
