A new :45 for Gatorade titled “Thief” has Harvey Keitel getting inside Yankees star Derek Jeter’s head on the baseball diamond, egging him on to steal second base during a game against the Anaheim Angels.
“Go ahead. Take it,” Keitel says, sidling up to Jeter on the base path.
“You’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do,” Keitel reasons.
And with that, Jeter is off like a shot, sliding safely into second.
Admiring Jeter’s work, Keitel says, “Ahhhh, stealing. It’s a beautiful thing.”
“Thief” is part of a larger “Is it in you?”-themed Gatorade campaign out of Element 79 Partners, Chicago, in which we get a glimpse of athletes’ inner thoughts. “Here, we thought it would be fun to explore what goes through Derek’s mind when he gets on base in a tough situation, and he has to make something happen for his team,” said Element 79 Partners’ art director Max Stinson, who conceptualized the spot with copywriter Jim Paul and creative director Jon Flannery.
When it came to casting Jeter’s inner coach, Harvey Keitel immediately came to mind. Given that he has a history of playing heavies, Keitel perfectly represents the type of character “who would be an authority on stealing if you will,” Stinson said.
As you might imagine, waiting to find out whether Keitel would accept the role was stressful. Ultimately, he responded well to the script, according to Paul, who believes “Thief” marks the first American spot Keitel has starred in.
Offered the job of directing the spot, director Stacy Wall of bicoastal Epoch Films said he didn’t have to think twice about accepting. “It was a great opportunity to work with a great actor and a great baseball player on a simply written, nicely conceived spot. It had everything going for it,” Wall reflected, noting, “So my job was just trying to serve the story, take it to the level it deserved to be told at.”
The director and his crew, which included DP Paul Cameron, shot “Thief” on location over the course of two evenings at Tempe Diablo Stadium in Tempe, Arizona, which is where the Anaheim Angels train in the off season. Baseball fans will recognize Angels pitcher John Lackey and catcher Mike Napoli’s cameos in the commercial.
Field of dreams
Wall aimed to create an intimate feel, shooting the spot in a way that would make fans feel as though they were actually on the field with Jeter. “I tried to avoid the angles we’re used to seeing on television during a baseball game. I wanted it to feel slightly surreal,” Wall explained, adding, “The script as it was conceived naturally has a tone of fiction. This is a metaphor–this is almost like a dream sequence meets action.”
Both Jeter and Keitel were enthusiastic participants, Wall said. Keitel insisted on showing up the day before the shoot to do a walkthrough with the director, “which doesn’t typically happen on a commercial,” shared Element 79 Partners’ producer Peter Hullinger, noting, “Harvey really approached it like it was a film project. He was very professional.”
According to Paul, Keitel was protective of the script. “We wanted him to do some alternate lines for network clearance possibilities just to cover ourselves, and he was like, ‘No, I love this script as it is,’ ” Paul recalled. “He didn’t want to stray from the script because he didn’t want to destroy the integrity of what he saw in it.”
Keitel also put in some overtime, insisting on going an hour and a half beyond the pre-determined wrap time to make sure Wall got everything he needed.
Looking back on Jeter and Keitel’s first meeting, Paul reflected, “It was a really great moment when they were first introduced by Stacy. Jeter said, ‘Oh, Mr. Keitel, I’m a big fan,’ and they shook hands, and Harvey was really coy and was like, ‘You, too.’ “
Wall confirmed that Keitel is indeed a big Yankees fan.
Once Wall got what he needed of Jeter and Keitel, the second evening of production was devoted to shooting pickup shots, plates and close ups. Later, the artisans at Framestore-CFC, New York, got to work on crowd duplication–Wall shot the spot with about 200 extras. “We needed to make this feel like it was a major league game,” Hullinger said. “So we relied on Framestore very heavily to help us make the crowd feel big.”
Framestore’s Eric Rosenfeld was on location as shoot supervisor.
Buying time
As for the edit, originally “Thief” was intended to be a :30, but while Andre Betz of Bug Editorial, New York, was cutting the spot, it became clear that the story could use more time to unfold. “It felt like there were pieces missing in the 30, so we sold the 45 second through to the client based on the rough cut,” Hullinger said.
This last-minute change meant a change in media buy, but the client was willing to make the accommodation, Hullinger praised.
In sound design and music, Stinson said the agency sought something off-kilter with a Twilight Zone feel to play up the bizarreness of the situation. Stimmung’s David Winer composed the track featured in the spot, while his colleague Gus Koven did the sound design.
All of the elements come together to create a spot that “feels larger than your average commercial,” Stinson mused.
