European directing team Vogel.Villar-Rios—Jan and Rene, respectively—blasted onto the U.S. advertising scene in 2003 with a three-spot campaign for Nike Air Vapor TD sneakers, and they haven’t slowed down since. The series of 15-second spots out of Wieden+Kennedy (W+K), Portland, Ore., features a remote-control sneaker on wheels, which, guided by its teenage inventor, bursts out of a garage to zoom through suburbia in "Neighborhood," kick a football through the uprights in "Field Goal," and beat a hotrod in a race in "Gas Station."
With these spots, this dynamic duo—who direct out of bicoastal/ international Believe Media—not only brought a new perspective to sports footwear, but also raised their profile in the U.S. advertising market. Vogel.Villar-Rios’ meteoric rise can be attributed to their highly creative team approach to directing. For one thing, watching Vogel and Villar-Rios in action, according to Believe Media executive producer Gerard Cantor, is like watching a wrestling team. "They’re like a tag team," he says. "One has the camera, and the other sticks his hand out so he can go into the ring."
"We just grab the camera," Vogel relates. "One of us gets the camera, and then we take turns. We shoot the key frames that we want to tell the basic story with, but there are things that you see in a moment that you never [noticed] before. When we see something interesting, we do it. And then we get in the flow and shoot much more than we ever planned to shoot."
"Usually, we shoot with two cameras to make sure that we are getting good coverage," Villar-Rios adds. "We set up the choreography of everything with the actors and the creative, but we are very spontaneous when we shoot the key frames."
Raised in Hamburg, Germany, Vogel met Villar-Rios, who grew up in Santiago, Chile, while both were attending the American Film Institute, Los Angeles. As the story goes, a three-day trip through Mexico with 30 Jeep breakdowns along the way solidified their partnership. Before the Nike campaign, the duo had helmed several European spots for clients such as Levi’s, adidas and Burger King.
Asked to compare working in the stateside market vs. the European market, both Vogel and Villar-Rios say they miss doing a director’s cut, and being involved in the edit. "We have fun shooting here, and there are always creative people and a cool concept, but we are used to doing a director’s cut," Villar-Rios says.
"A first cut is really nice, and something we are used to in Europe," Vogel adds. "Especially with the way that we shoot, it is a little weird. It’s one hundred percent creative, so that affects how you want to edit."
Variety
Like many directors, Vogel. Villar-Rios is uncomfortable about characterizing their work. "We don’t want to be pushed to one corner," Vogel says. "Sometimes when people don’t see what they want on your reel, they think that you can’t do it. But for us, it’s just that we haven’t done it in commercials yet. We also try not to repeat ourselves, and have a new approach to everything we get. We try to focus on different stories in a good atmosphere. If it makes sense, we try to have real characters, like you would see on the street."
A prime example of a spot with a real character approach is the recently completed "Summer Games," for Coca-Cola, out of Berlin Cameron/ Red Cell, New York, which promotes the upcoming Summer Olympics. "It was about getting really close to a bunch of kids, all of them who were non-actors," explains Vogel. "The idea was to recreate the feeling of summer in thirty seconds. If you think about last summer, it’s all of the things that would pop into your mind."
Moreover, the spot was a very collaborative effort. Vogel.Villar-Rios met with the agency creatives while the concept was still being hashed out. They had a roundtable discussion and worked on it together. "There were long talks and it was a long shoot—six days," notes Vogel. "We started with this loose approach; there was no actual storyboard when we started shooting. It was an idea and a mix of situations out of a concept that we wanted to approach."
Spontaneity was a big part of the shoot as well. "We always had to find a new location for the next day," Vogel recalls. "We were really going day by day, and it was a crazy experience. Also, it was very interesting because everybody—kids and grownups—stuck together for the [whole] six-day [shoot]. We tried to get close to the kids. It was supposed to look like their world, so we couldn’t force our wishes on them."
"It was a great shoot," Villar-Rios chimes in. "It was anarchy with new and fresh ideas on how to approach things. We’ve been very fortunate and lucky to have always worked with good creative. It starts off like a first date and you are skeptical, but then after half a day, you realize there is no confrontation. If we want to say something, we say it."
