Doug Pray has directed documentaries ranging from Hype!, about the exploitation of the grunge music scene in Seattle, to Infamy in 2005, about graffiti culture, to last year’s Surfwise, about the surfing Paskowitz family and their eccentric patriarch. Pray’s Sundance premiereArt & Copyis a scattershot look at some of the pillars of advertising including George Lois, Lee Clow, Dan Wieden, Mary Wells, David Kennedy, and the big campaigns they’ve worked on, such as Apple’s 1984, the Got Milk campaign, Nike’s “Just Do It,” and more. We talked to Pray about his planned move into narrative filmmaking, making an ad for ads, and “growing flowers in hell.”
On the surface, Art & Copyis a tribute to legendary creative minds in advertising, and the process through which they made their most iconic ads. From taglines that became pop touchstones like “Just Do It” and “Got Milk?” to how Mac, Budweiser and Volkswagon went beyond their product and became “lifestyle brands,” the charismatic advertisers share how it happened from their point of view, which smacks of self-mythologizing. Not only does the director, Doug Pray, appear to completely buy the mythology presented, but when the film raises moral and ethical questions about advertising, I’m not sure he realizes the questions are even there.
The documentary follows a simple structure. An advertising legend (Hal Riney, George Lois, Dan Wieden, David Kennedy, Mary Wells, Rich Silverstein, Jeff Goodby, Lee Clow among others) tells a story or expounds on creativity. Between each story is a meditative sequence that harkens back to Koyaanisqatsi: billboard scaffolding, a city highway, a satellite being constructed –the real concrete and steel lattice work advertising travels to get to us. Usually, over these images a disturbing statistic pops up like, “We receive 5,000 advertising messages a day.” Often, the images include workaday drones putting up billboards or sitting at banks of computers monitoring satellites. Then there’s a statistic revealing how absurd post-modern life has gotten like, “Children receive a zillion advertisements before they’re potty trained.” Paradoxically, these statistics are always followed by another ad executive sitting in an architectural masterpiece of a workspace talking about the power of creativity and how they harnessed it to the betterment of the world.
After a while, it becomes apparent that Pray’s desolate shots of satellites, billboards, highways and cables with the creepy statistics superimposed continually beg a question that won’t be answered: And do you, rebel/artist/advertising billionaire, feel complicit in creating this consumer madness? This massive spider web where we’re sold stuff from the time we open our eyes to the time we close them?
The past two weekends have seen the release of two big, R-rated comedies, first Pineapple Express and then Tropic Thunder. Both featured stars who have, at least occasionally, dipped their toes into family friendly film waters and who have developed big followings across all age groups.
Both movies marketing campaigns also featured red-band trailers. Others and I have discussed the role of the red-band trailer in the campaigns for R-rated movies. They are great components for selling the movies to their adult audiences since, as I’ve said before, they are able to more accurately portray the movie as a whole. If a movie’s comedy or drama depends on the use of coarse language or violence then it’s better for the movie to be able to present those elements to the target audience in order to appear attractive.
Red-band trailers have come back into fashion in the last four or five years largely because of the rise of high-speed video online. On the Internet, studios can put into place safeguards, usually in the form of forms that require the inputting of name, birth-date and zip code, that are meant to keep those under 18 from seeing the trailer or other content. Invariably, though, these trailers wind up on YouTube or some other video sharing site – or directly on blogs – where there is no safeguard. This makes what’s supposed to be restricted content available to everywhere regardless of age. This is an obvious flaw in the process.
But the larger question about the advertising of R-rated films is: What advertising is appropriate?
Chris Thilk passes along word that Paramount’s Iron Man website saw its traffic spike by 800 percent after a new ad for the film was unveiled during the Super Bowl. This is interesting for two reasons. First, it would give the indication that there’s still a sizable segment of the audience that learns about movies first via TV advertising.
Second: I’m so not the target audience for this movie, and I never get hardons for trailers, but the Iron Man trailer almost makes me understand what it feels like to be a 16 year-old boy (almost). It seems so clear to me that the full Iron Man trailer, which I believe had been online for a couple of weeks before the game, is far superior than the Super Bowl ad in terms of selling the movie as a narrative experience, but it was the TV ad that apparently got the job done, and it did it by getting down to basics. He builds a suit, he puts it on, he makes out with Gwyneth Paltrow, and he wins. This is what the people want. I can’t begrudge them that.
AdLand points to this print ad, purchased by Turner Classic Movies, which backhandedly “supports” the striking writers. A mock-up of a crumpled screenplay cover page, the ad encourages striking screenwriters to “keep it up” because, “After all, the greatest movies have already been written.”
It’s only surprising that TCM, a brand built on heavy fetishism of the old studio system, would so blatantly taunt the WGA, in that it’s a surprise to see ANYONE express an AMPTP-sympathetic position these days. But the ad has sparked an interesting conversation over at LAist. Of course, the ad is condescending. But is it actually more sinister than that?
At the Kansas City Star, Robert W. Butler brings up an issue that I’ve been thinking about a lot: with music minimized in the massive TV campaign behind Sweeney Todd (see a totally music-free spot above), aren’t they worried that that millions of Jack Sparrow fans will swarm the theaters, only march out angrily when the star breaks into song? According to Butler, we’d be naive to expect anything else:
Today’s kids are crazy about Johnny Depp and horror, and the Warner marketing folk have played to those strengths, emphasizing that in the R-rated Sweeney Todd Depp plays a bleakly amusing killer, a nut job with a straight razor. At the same time the ads de-emphasize the film’s musical origins…Lest I come off as terribly cynical about this, let me state right now that I approve of the Warner ad campaign. That’s because I think Sweeney Todd is a brilliant accomplishment that deserves to be seen by as many people as possible. And if you’ve got to con the kiddies into buying a ticket, that’s fine with me.
“Con the kiddies,” huh? Without even broaching the topic of a studio blatantly trying to sell an R-rated film to the under 17s (not to mention Butler’s presumption of knowledge about “today’s kids”), the real dishonesty here goes beyond the fact that the distributors are not being totally forthcoming about the fact that 90 percent of this story is told in song. The real lie: Sweeney Todd is not just a musical. It’s very literally your parents’ musical. …Read more
Yet another filmmaker moonlighting as an ad director: Harmony Korine directed the above TV advert for Thornton’s, a British department store chocolate store [thanks, Marie!]. There are some unmistakeable Korine touches here (and even vague references to images from julien donkey-boy and the upcoming Mister Lonely–which, by the way, is AWESOME). But still, it’s somewhat ironic that I’m able to show you a more-or-less conventional, Holiday season-timed TV ad directed by the bad boy of 90s independent cinema, and a short film made specifically for the web by a canonized, old-guard, Oscar winning filmmaker that goes out of its way to upend standard conceptions about online advertising. Interesting, no?
Martin Scorsese has never been shy about aligning himself with brands, but when the offer came in to shill Freixenet sparkling wine, he must have momentarily flashed back to Orson Welles’s Paul Mason commercials. There’s a difference between taking home a paycheck, and prostrating your legacy to a bald-faced, half-assed cash-in, remembered for all eternity via the YouTube dissemination of regrettable outtakes.
It’s no wonder, then, that this elaborate Freixenet ad directed by and starring Scorsese barely announces itself as an ad until the final minute or so.
The concept: Scorsese the tireless film preservationist finds three pages of an unproduced Alfred Hitchcock project called The Key to Reserva; Scorsese the filmmaker decides to film the pages “the way [Hitchcock] would be making it then, only making it now.” The ensuing short combines elements of The Man Who Knew Too Much, Vertigo, North by Northwest, The Birds, and probably countless other Hitchcock films; there are just two, extremely fetishistic, shots of the product. Watch it here.
Last week it was Wes Anderson; this week, hipster auteur Michel Gondry cashes in with the above advert for Motorola Razr phones. The spot adopts the basic visual themes (and, by the looks of it, some of the sets and special effects) of Gondry’s 2006 feature The Science of Sleep. The pesky product doesn’t make an appearance until the final ten seconds. [Via Laughing Squid]
At Hollywood Elsewhere, Jeff Wells has issued a plea for support of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. The film is opening in New York, Los Angeles, Toronto and Austin this weekend, and Wells implies that a wider release relies on opening weekend numbers. “If you appreciate the importance of giving this awesome film a decent reception, you’ll clap your hands and arm-twist as many friends as you can between now and Friday into seeing it this weekend,” Wells writes.
Wells has never been shy about supporting his faves, but it still seems a little out of the ordinary to see any blogger trying to rally the troops around a star-anchored studio film. It’s not that I don’t relate: it felt distinctly strange to walk around Toronto and answer the question, “Seen anything good?” with a ringing endorsement of a $60 million picture starring the most famous father of four in America. I’m sure it was just an accident of scheduling, but Jesse James far surpassed any of the microbudget indie films that I saw at that festival (you can find my Toronto review of the film here).
So Jesse James has a lot of blog support. The weirder thing is, the case could be made that it actually needs it. As I see it, there are two major issues to content with. More after the jump.
In 2006, the Wes Anderson-directed AmEx commercials that preceded each film at the Tribeca Film Festival sadly topped most of the films themselves. That’s probably more of a dig at Tribeca than legit praise for Anderson, but regardless: the reigning king of quirk has a new side gig directing adverts for AT & T. I’ve embedded one above, and you can find four more here. I don’t think Anderson’s obsession with tableau has been put to better use since Rushmore, but until I see The Darjeeling Limited next week at the New York Film Festival, I’ll withhold final judgement.
A few notes on my second day in Toronto while I make coffee and try to figure out what to eat for dinner and which movie to see in tonight’s late slot:
1. The above image was taken last night, about two blocks away from the main festival venue.
2. No one around here seems to be able to talk about The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford without dropping the word “masterpiece.” I saw it this afternoon, and I have to agree that it’s a really beautiful film. I also have to admit that I dozed off for about five minutes right in the middle (two totally inappropriate things that I do really well at afternoon festival screenings: cry, and fall asleep). I walked out wishing I could walk right back in and see it again–which I’m contemplating doing later tonight.
3. There are literally six ads from festival sponsors before every screening–even press screenings. It’s the price of running a festival this big, I guess, but the NBC-Universal ad in particular is really getting on my nerves.
4. Fox Searchlight hired a band of actors to jog around the line for the press & industry screening of Juno, wearing copies of Michael Cera’s track uniform. They posed for photographs and passed out Juno-emblazoned boxes of orange tic tacs. Most of them had the physiques of personal trainers, inspiring more than one catty comment from onlookers regarding how much “better” these guys looked in the outfit than Michael Cera. I, of course, begged to differ. Photographic evidence after the jump.
Reuters ran a story yesterday on “adlets”, also known as “blinks”, also known as extremely brief audio commercials that radio programmers can sprinkle into blocks of content. It’s a format that seems to be catching on with the studios–Fox has apparently bought a lot of adlet space to promote The Simpsons (ostensibly, these short bursts of brand identification would work equally well to promote both the series and the movie), and Paramount went the blink route in promoting Stardust (perhaps that’s why we blinked and missed it at the box office? Ha ha.) I only listen to NPR (yeah, I know) so I haven’t heard these, but apparently the prototypical example is the voice of Homer Simpson saying “Doh!” popping up in between songs.
Idolator connects this “advance” in marketing techology to Blipverts — ie: the micro-commercials that somehow caused an aggressive local news man to get trapped in the machine, resulting in virtual media sage/Coke spokesman Max Headroom. I was a big fan of Max Headroom as a teenager (thanks to Sci-Fi Channel reruns), but I couldn’t remember exactly why Blipverts were so dangerous. So I went looking for clips from the show, and stumbled across the entire 48-minute pilot, which I’ve embedded above. And for my paranoid rantings on the insidious connection between Clear Channel and Max Headroom, click the “Read More” link.
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
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