By Robert Goldrich

LOS ANGELES --

Our annual tradition continues with SHOOT sounding out John Leverence, sr. VP of awards at the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, to get an entertainment industry perspective on the commercials nominated for the primetime Emmy which this year are: two Ad Council PSAs in the “Love Has No Labels” campaign from R/GA—”Love Cam” and “We Are America”; Google’s “Year in Search 2016” out of 72andSunny; Gathering For Justice’s “Why I March” from mcgarrybowen, San Francisco; and Squarespace’s “Calling JohnMalkovich.com” out of agency JohnXHannes, NY.

The latter is the “outlier” in this year’s field, assessed Leverence. While the other four nominated pieces are described by Leverence as “morality tales,” the Squarespace spot deploys humor and the cantankerous persona of Malkovich to great effect. Directed by Miles Jay of Smuggler, the spot, which debuted during this year’s Super Bowl telecast, features actor Malkovich in his fashion design studio talking on the phone to someone who has already claimed the domain name JohnMalkovich.com. This raises the question of who is being the real John Malkovich as the famous thespian tries to convince the other Malkovich to give him back his “rightful” domain name—but to no avail.

In its own way, the spot, related Leverence, is “kind of a hard sell, saying, ‘Look, here’s the problem. You can fix it by getting your domain name through Squarespace. There are no excuses. Otherwise you’ll become an angry John Malkovich.”

Four “warned”
The remaining four nominated commercials play like “cautionary tales,” observed Leverence, all carrying a sense of commitment, urgency and vigilance in promoting tolerance and inclusiveness.

The Ad Council PSAs are a follow-up to last year’s Emmy winner, “Love Has No Labels,” in which different skeletal figures emerge from behind an X-ray machine, revealing people for who they are and eliciting spontaneous, approving reactions from an audience.

This year “Love Cam”—directed by Floyd Russ of Tool—takes a page from that live stunt scenario only this time the reactions come from fans at the NFL Pro Bowl Game in Orlando, Florida’s Camping World Stadium. This Ad Council piece puts a twist on the traditional sports stadium jumbotron “kiss cam” by replacing it with a camera capturing positive expressions of love, unity, diversity and acceptance across race, religion, gender, sexuality, ability and age. The Orlando venue carries a deeper meaning in that the filming of the spot took place not long after the June 2016 terrorist attack/hate crime at Pulse, a gay night club in Orlando, where 49 people were killed. Appearing in “Love Cam” was a lesbian couple who is seen kissing—they were survivors of the onslaught at Pulse.

The “Love Cam” spot was “very sweet, emotional and surprising,” said Leverence, noting that in one scene a guy is next to a girl. The kiss cam puts them into focus when the gent instead turns to his other side and kisses another man. The piece also captures affection between two elderly people, those who are physically challenged, and interracial romance.

Meanwhile Rocky Morton of MJZ directed Ad Council’s “We Are America,” a video which too introduces us to a diverse mix of folks, underscoring that the country is blessed by a full spectrum of age, talents, sexual orientation, race, religion and gender. Delivering a soliloquy in an “anytown USA” kind of environment is WWE wrestling star John Cena.

“John Cena walking through the streets as the people he’s talking about emerge—women, veterans, Muslims—was very nicely done,” said Leverence, adding that this message too struck a responsive chord with Academy voters.

Similarly we see different people, most of them women from different walks of life, explain “Why I March” in the Gathering For Justice PSA. Directed by Nanette Burstein of Hungry Man, the piece features celebs and others who explain what drives them to participate in the then upcoming Women’s March (which took place in 370 locations worldwide on January 21, 2017). The PSA was created to help boost attendance at the various marches which were designed to express a message of solidarity and unity about women’s rights to society at large and the then brand new Trump administration.

“They were marching for equality and fundamental human decency—a recurring theme in the nominated work,” said Leverence.

And Google’s “Year in Search 2016” too is an affirmation of people seeking a voice and taking action. Leverence said that the piece—produced by 72andSunny’s in-house studio Hecho en 72—touched upon many different aspects of the year, it ultimately played like “a plea for peace, love and understanding,” accentuated by excerpts from the Tony Award acceptance speech/sonnet by Hamilton creator and star Lin-Manuel Miranda—who spoke of his wife’s love and alluded to the tragic Pulse mass shooting which occurred that very weekend. Miranda affirmed that “love is love is love is love is love is love” and “cannot be killed or swept aside.”

The Google, Ad Council and Gathering For Justice entries all represent a pushback against divisiveness, a declaration that “this isn’t the way it needs to be—even if that’s how it is on the news cycle,” said Leverence. “There’s an urgency in these commercials about remembering that. This was enormously relevant at the time of Emmy voting.”

This work, noted Leverence, appealed to the social consciousness of Academy voters. Whereas in the past, the tugging at heartstrings in nominated spots was along the lines of a lost puppy saved by the Clydesdales in a Budweiser-sponsored piece, the current climate calls for more overt messages. Instead of work that brings an easy tear to the eye, voters recognized emotional appeals which Leverence described as being “more direct and in your face. You can feel the urgency in the message.”

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