It’s been 30 years since John Moschitta, Jr. starred as a fast talking executive in the classic 1981 Federal Express commercial “Fast Paced World,” but he can still talk a mile a minute as we learn in “Middle Seat,” a stirring :30 spot for JetBlue that finds the actor perfectly cast as an on-the-go businessman known as Mr. Nonstop.
Looking directly at the camera, Mr. Nonstop, seated in the middle seat on a JetBlue flight, delivers a rapid-fire monologue during which he heralds all of the perks he enjoys flying on JetBlue and rattles off the numerous cities JetBlue offers nonstop service to out of Boston.
Mr. Nonstop is clearly thrilled with all that JetBlue has to offer, and he may be the only passenger in the history of flight who isn’t miffed about being stuck in a middle seat.
Part of a three-spot campaign created by Boston ad agency Mullen and directed by Matt Aselton out of Arts & Sciences, West Hollywood, Calif., “Middle Seat” began with a rather straightforward assignment–spread the word about all of the places JetBlue flies to out of Boston’s Logan International Airport–and resulted in a commercial that is not only informative but is also entertaining and buzzworthy.
Icon returns Who isn’t delighted to see the fast talker doing his thing again? It’s fun to see one of the commercial world’s icons in a modern context.
In conceptualizing the commercial, the creative team at Mullen wanted to come up with “an interesting device that would allow for the sharing of a litany of destinations in an engaging and captivating way,” Mullen group creative director/art director Tim Vaccarino said.
It wasn’t long before the idea of harnessing Moschitta’s accelerated gift for gab came up. He is indeed the perfect loquacious spokesperson.
“Who else could get that much information across in thirty seconds?” Vaccarino reasoned. “The idea was, let’s find this guy who was a mover and shaker back in the ’80s at FedEx, doing deals, making deals, making things happen. What would he look like today? Let’s go with the assumption he is still making deals and traveling, and if he did travel a lot, he’d fly JetBlue because they are constantly on the move and on the go, and they get him to all of the places he has to get to.”
Aselton loved the idea and appreciated the fact that the advertising agency, like him, wanted to pay homage to the work of Joe Sedelmaier, who directed the fast talker FedEx commercial for Ally & Gargano back in the day.
“I didn’t want it to be a ripoff, or an unreferenced ripoff,” Aselton said. “I like that style, and I grew up with that style. I’d rather make a direct reference to it rather than just pretend that we’re inventing something.”
There were some limitations as to how closely Aselton could recreate filmmaker Sedelmaier’s distinct aesthetic while shooting the spot with DP Peter Donahue at Air Hollywood in Pacoima, Calif.
“We were trying to create frames that were sort of like the Sedelmaier commercial, but we really couldn’t be because it’s widescreen format now, and I think some of the reason why some of his old stuff looks so wacky was partly art direction and also because it was all wide photography, very close, which looks weird in 4:3, but in our format–16:9–it was hard to achieve that,” Aselton shared.
Moschitta read his lines from a TelePrompter that was placed right above the camera.
While he had gotten the script ahead of time, the ad agency was making tweaks right up until the last minute, so the TelePrompter was key, and the use of the device also kept Moschitta looking upward, with this chin tilted downward, much in the same way he was positioned in the original FedEx spot.
Staying power It’s one thing to see Moschitta’s fast talk on a television screen. It’s another thing entirely to witness it in person, and both Aselton and Vaccarino were impressed not only with his abilities as a motor mouth but his stamina–the actor did three commercials in one day. That’s a lot of talking.
“He is a champion,” Vaccarino said. “He powered through it.”
While Moschitta was a consummate pro, the actors sitting on either side of Mr. Nonstop–Kimmy Robertson and Kevin Dunigan–enhanced the humor in “Middle Seat” with their subtle monitoring of and recoiling from an overly enthusiastic row mate.
“I wish I could tell you I gave them really complex and nuanced direction,” Aselton said. “But to be honest, I said, ‘Just treat him as if he were a crazy homeless person coming over to you. You kind of look at them out of the corner of your eye to make sure they don’t attack you, but other than that you try not to interact.’ “
Robertson might look familiar to some of you.
Can’t place her? She played the secretary on Twin Peaks.
Aselton is a huge fan of Twin Peaks and director David Lynch in general, and he has worked with Robertson on other projects.
“It was almost this sort of perfect world to be able to [pay homage] to an ad from my childhood and to work with the secretary from Twin Peaks,” Aselton said.
