Death by giant squid is an unlikely fate—particularly in one’s own swimming pool. But that scenario is played out to humorous effect in Iomega’s "Pool," via Publicis & Hal Riney, San Francisco. Using the squid as a metaphor for a computer virus, the spot memorably illustrates the importance of having a back-up.
Swedish directing collective Traktor of bicoastal/international Partizan, which directed the :30, upholds its reputation as a purveyor of the bizarre. The spot also benefits from Traktor’s affinity for casting left-of-center non-actors, which, as with much of its work, proves key to the commercial’s kitschy charm.
With muted colors recalling the cheesy film look of the ’70s, the spot opens on a backyard setting, where a fat, bearded and bespectacled guy sits on a floating chaise lounge in his above-ground swimming pool. "This is Fred," a cheery-sounding voiceover tells us. "Let’s pretend Fred is a file on your computer." Garbed in a tight-fitting Speedo, Fred stares at the camera with a tropical drink in one hand while lightly paddling the water with the other. A happy, lighthearted score helps establish the whimsical tone and provides a contrast to the impending disaster. The track was composed by Thad Spencer and Greg Herzenach of Asche & Spencer, Minneapolis, and Venice, Calif.
"He’s a thesis you’ve worked on for two years," the voiceover continues. "You’re very proud of Fred." Standing poolside is a woman, who’s presumably Fred’s wife, filling the pool with water from a garden hose.
Cut to a wide shot as an impossibly huge squid—a CG creation courtesy of Venice, Calif.-based Digital Domain—abruptly emerges from the depths of the pool. As the woman screams helplessly and a small terrier yaps excitedly, the squid’s long tentacles envelop the yelling Fred, lifting him and the float high in the air. A computer virus has struck, the voiceover explains. The sea creature drags Fred under the surface, apparently to a watery grave. "There goes Fred—darn!," the nonplussed voiceover adds.
But in the next instant, an unscathed Fred and his float magically reappear in the pool with a "pop" sound effect. "Look—it’s the back-up copy of Fred you saved on an Iomega zip disk," the VO says, accompanied by a laugh track. "Welcome back, Fred." The spot concludes as the portly guy scrambles, unsuccessfully, to clamber up on the float. As he flails about, he falls back in the water. Supered copy relates the tagline: "Zip… It" followed by the Iomega logo.
"Pool" was part of an initial three-spot campaign that also included "Farmer" and "Giant." The agency team consisted of creative director Mike Mazza, art director Joe Kayser, copywriter Michael Barti and producer Julie Shannon.
Mazza related that the strategy was to leverage the equity that Iomega has in its Zip drive and disk products to help brand Iomega. "Nobody really knew what Iomega was, but people knew what Zip was," he added. Given the dictum to create the execution around the "Zip…It" tagline, the creatives needed to find a tone for the spot that was in keeping with the slightly silly line, Mazza said.
"The thinking was that if you use conventional storytelling with real situations, that’s a good way [for the ad] to get lost," observed Mazza. "The airwaves are replete with that kind of advertising. So we came up with using metaphors to get across the idea."
Feeling the spot needed a distinctive look, the agency chose Traktor to helm (the on-set directing duties in this case were shared by Mats Lindberg and Ulf Johansson). "They’re very disciplined directors and they’re extremely versatile," said Mazza. "But they had a way of looking at things that was so distinctive that we thought it would add to the final result. They look at it from the vantage point of people who aren’t from this country, and I think they bring a freshness to it."
Among Traktor’s suggestions was to move the original ocean setting of the spot to a swimming pool, a more unexpected site for a squid attack. They also added the wife and yapping dog, although one proposal—a tighter pair of shorts for Fred—was nixed by the client.
Traktor head of production Jim Bouvet, who also served as the project’s line producer, said that "Pool" proved to be a surprisingly complicated endeavor. After rejecting the idea of an animatronic pneumatic squid as too complicated and expensive (as well as being too fake-looking), Traktor opted to go with CG.
"It’s a tricky thing because, in the end, even with the CG squid, it’s fake," said Bouvet. "It’s one of those effects that—as good as you can make it—is only as believable as the viewer is willing to let it be."
Digital Domain (DD) visual effects supervisor André Bustanoby said there were a number of challenges related to creating a believable illusion. "It’s bright daylight, the squid has to interact not only with the pool and the water, but has to appear to be lifting the guy out of the water. It was a huge shot in terms of how in-your-face it is. Then we cut to a close-up … you can see the tentacles holding the raft and there’s water dripping off them; there’s shadows from the squid’s arms on the guy; the guy is casting shadows back onto the squid."
creature feature
The DD team spent six weeks creating the photorealistic creature, which was rendered in Lightwave and primarily created in Maya. Modeling began before shooting started because the team needed as much lead time as possible, said Bustanoby, adding they couldn’t start animating it until they knew the timing of the live-action.
A giant crane attached to rigging that connected to the inflatable raft was used to meet the aforementioned challenge of making it look like the squid was lifting the actor in the air, tossing him around and pulling him down into the pool.
"[The rig] lifted him up, very quickly," said Bouvet. "I think we had 15 strong P.A.s pulling on it as counterweight. The guy wasn’t attached to the raft; he’s just sitting on it, so he had to do a balancing act as it pulls up into the air. Then he gets jostled; we had a rig to make that thing undulate and move as it might if a squid was tossing it around."
Then there was the problem of how to stage Fred’s quick descent. This required them to deflate the raft, since any bit of air would create buoyancy preventing the guy from going under. Numerous hoses were attached to the raft and a series of vacuums sucked the air out, related Bouvet, who added, "He had to go up, the air had to come out and then he was released. His weight pulled everything down and under."
The actor was filmed against a 40-foot-wide greenscreen, which was put up to separate him from the water elements. Bouvet related that separate passes were also done for the wife and the dog, the water splashing out from the sides of the pool, and the water elements that are lifted up when the squid rises (the water was filmed against a blackscreen). The last pass was done to capture the background shot of the house.
"What was nice was that, combined with that complicated effect, we had a very uncomplicated guy playing Fred," said Bouvet. The actor is a computer teacher and photographer who originally came in to audition for the role of a nudist in another Iomega spot.
"In the casting callback, he warned us that he couldn’t swim," recalls Bouvet with a laugh. "At first I thought, ‘Oh no,’ but then we said ‘Hey, that’s perfect—he’ll be afraid of the water.’ So when he does that clutzy move at the end trying to get back on the raft…anytime he got dunked under, he had a real hard time coordinating closing his mouth and not breathing at the same time." But the actor had no worries; safety divers were at hand around the four-foot-deep pool.
