love in the time of mechanical reproduction

right before motorola launched their ipad killer, the "xoom" tablet, i partnered with their ad agency, ogilvy & mather, to make a documentary focusing on the "passion" and "process" of its creation. our team traveled to chicago, deep into the beating heart of the motorola empire, to interview key engineers, marketers and project managers as well as tour their state-of-the-art facilities and capture the magic of building a new piece of technology. i came away with two distinct lessons:

1) no matter how detail oriented or technical the job, passion lies firmly rooted in the eye of the beholder. this dude is psyched!

2) "state-of-the-art" technical facilities actually look like MacGyver's messy garage. if anyone ever says you don't need an art department to shoot a commercial because "you're just getting documentary coverage", simply smile politely and walk away. even a "verité" mess needs to be art directed.

after many hours with the hyper-thoughtful and extremely skilled editor, carlos almonte, and my favorite colorist, emery wells, we ended up with this short film which immediately disappeared into the ravenously content-hungry maw that is the advertising world.

but the more i started paying attention to the moto (and droid) campaigns, the more i started asking myself an odd question: are advertisers reflecting a cultural desire to be a robot?

the question might sound strange but consider two unrelated but recent campaigns:

i haven't a clue what who this is supposed to appeal to. cyberpunk frat boys? disco-hopping sci-fi fans? is there a segment of people aspiring to robotic perfection? even if i don't understand these, at least they're still tongue-in-cheek fun, all about the par-TAAAAY!

the droid campaign is a different matter entirely. ok, so the iphone has effectively owned the clean, white humanistic design territory making the opposite direction - dark, mysterious and sexy - the obvious choice for a droid campaign. but just because apple has effectively conveyed an easy-to-use, distinctly human interface and tone, should droid emphasize a complicated and robotic aesthetic?

this is not metaphor. dude actually turns into the terminator (and let's be honest, it's definitely a dude). am i missing something? are there, in fact, large groups of people running around wishing to be Robocop? well, actually... hmmmm.

IKEA final final... finally

way back a year ago, when my friend lars asked if i wanted to help his creative team shoot test spots for an ikea pitch meeting, i had no idea what to expect. he pulled out a couple fresh-from-the-hopper scripts and asked me to come in for a conversation.  our last collaboration having been so fun, i thought: "why not?"  plus, my grandmother loves ikea so i thought it'd earn me a double share of cookies come christmas time.

(grandy's cookies modeled by my super-cool neighbor and jewelry designer, lindsey).

the next morning, the conversation turned out to be not-exactly-but-very-much-like a pre-pro meeting so, needless to say, i brushed off my hangover and we hit the ground running.

while the production was one of those "you want what, when?!" type of deals, the creative written by mara evans and art directed by raul mandru was solid and charming.  the two storybook yarns (which would've felt very much at home on prairie home companion) valued narrative and tone over egregious product porn (sadly uncommon these days).

with my trusted cinematographer, aaron phillips, and an amazing new find, the energetic and innovative production designer, rachel macintosh, the production team moved mountains to get these films done (in the midst of a blizzard no less).

but it wasn't until tim wilson at go robot and emery wells of katabatic (another incredible find) edited and timed the final pieces that the potential inherent in the original scripts finally emerged.

though we shot these a year ago, the final grading and finishing was only just completed last week.  i'm proud of the results…

oh, and ogilvy won the account.

cars in canada

landing back in alberta for yet another shoot, i figure i'd better hurry up and post my last canadian project or run the risk of lapping myself. but first a word on edmonton: despite the self-deprecatory, classically canadian habit of locals to refer to their city as "deadmonton", i hereby rename it (shout out to uber-genius kristen) "golden threadmonton" because of the strangely diverse and interesting projects and people i've come across up here.

not to mention the proliferation of CASH, MONEY…. hmmm, what comes next?  oh, right, HO'S.

from hospitals to oil changes to teacher's unions to pharmacies, i've worked on a wide range of challenging projects.  there are obvious limitations to a regional market but one advantage is the freedom (and sometimes necessity) to wear multiple creative hats.   unlike what i'm used to down in the states, in Golden Threadmonton one doesn't have to be strictly a "____ ___" to shoot with "____" (fill in the blanks: "car guy" - "cars"; "performance guy" - "actors"; "comedy guy" - "funny scripts").

as one might suspect, this is quite refreshing.

what's also refreshing is the unassuming attitude of the many fascinating and intelligent people who've made their lives in the cold Albertan north.  from geneticists to music promoters to video artists to photographers, I've found an unexpected underground scene brimming with creativity, energy and possibility.

as proof, just look at this mural inside a local fast food restaurant - yogi bear with a 1960's playboy bunny?  what the…?!?!  what do they put in those burgers?

anyway, about a month ago i had the pleasure of collaborating with the hugely talented DP, chris walters, on a commercial for Integra Tires.

while the spot doesn't pretend to reinvent the formula for selling tires (es cuáles es), i'm proud of the work we were able to do.  i always feel that every project, regardless of its constraints, offers some area worthy of intense focus to excel at and learn from.  this time around, it was the chance to light and shoot large, curved mirrors: cars.

here's the final spot - the red-burst backgrounds a last-minute inspiration from shooting on (the completely useless) valentine's day.

alberta teacher's association

a few months back, i had the opportunity to experience a "not-freezing-your-ass-off" canadian summer.  it was beautiful with lush, colorful foliage, mild sunny days and the feeling that, for a moment at least, all could be right with the world.

pithy though my travel writing might be, i was there to work and the project (for the alberta's teacher association) was encompassing.  teaming up with my favorite canadian ex-pat DP, christopher walters (pictured here under extreme suspicion by the TSA), we populated an elementary school with adult students playing at being 3rd graders.  the agency's idea being that if schools don't pay attention to kids when they're kids, society will have to deal with much graver consequences when they're adults.

strapped for cash, we shot on the canon 5D and the result is pretty decent.  that said, the camera's handling of color still seems a bit sketchy and, as the files are already so highly compressed, there's not as much range in post to correct any chroma-shifts.  even so, my not-so-secret find of the year, emery wells of katabatic, did a great job grading the final piece.

though the day was grueling (a dozen actors playing children are not unlike a dozen children play acting), i felt the shoot came off well until i spied a doodle by one of the actors no doubt sketched during the many breaks for lighting or camera resets.  i think i'm the angry looking guy:

here's the final spot:

Ice Water Cometh: a truly inconsequential meditation on the history of ice water in hospitality

I've often wondered at the ubiquity of ice cold water in hospitality.  Certainly there are times when an ice cold beverage is the longed-for refreshment - after a sweaty day (or night) of hot labor or during those 2 months of brutally humid heat in the dead of a NYC summer - but mostly, ice water just makes my hands cold, my fillings hurt and my head ache. Surely many others have noticed the incongruity of being served a glass of ice water by a well-meaning server in the middle of winter.  The rule of thumb seemingly should be: "if you have to heat the room, don't ice the water."

Besides the discomfort of relative temperature extremes, there appears to be a health reason to avoid iced water as well.  Something about a shock to your system and a digestive inhibitor.

Pondering these deep questions while being served iced water in the middle of winter on a heated bus, I began to formulate a theory.  Like the great philosopher-scientists of old (Plato, Aristotle, Empedocles) who disdained experimental observation as coarse and unseemly in contrast to pure theoretical poppycock (aether, anyone?), I am content to propound an explanation based on zero historical fact or responsible research.  Even so, I've a hunch I'm right.

My theory is that somewhere in recent cultural memory, ice water symbolized luxury.  Today, ice water is virtually worthless but not long ago, before the advent of refrigeration, if I offered you ice water, what I was really saying was that I had laboriously harvested a big block of river ice in the winter and carefully kept it insulated in my cellar with straw and blankets so that, 6 months later, I could chip off a piece and put it in your drink.  Or, more precisely, I was saying I could afford to hire someone to do that.

In a warm climate, as Paul Theroux's Allie Fox tragically demonstrates in The Mosquito Coast (forget the movie, read the book), ice is nothing short of a miracle.  A truth I discovered empirically, if imperfectly, at the age of 8 when I had the foresight to secretly stash a winter snowball in the freezer to be used in the heat of summer as the neighborhood's only operational winter weapon against my unsuspecting sister, Star.  A most cunning and devious plan which I either did or did not get from Calvin & Hobbes which began syndication around the same time.  To this day, I don't know whether it was the months of building anticipation and excitement that over-adrenalized my arm or the strangely tender feelings I had developed for this hunk of anachronistic snow that perverted my aim but, either way, I missed.  As I looked on, dumbfounded, my sister calmly and carefully scooped up the scattered snowy remains quickly melting on the hot asphalt and returned fire.  She did not miss.  Needless to say, I was disappointed.

With this kind of labor in mind, a restaurant of yesteryear serving iced water in the summertime must've seemed impossibly lavish - an oasis in the desert.  Thus the unconscious shorthand employed by your waiter every time your glass is filled with clinking, freezing ice cubes.

But times change and, like many antiquated notions and ideas (the electoral college, landlines, television commercials), ice ain't what it used to be.  Perhaps, as we all tighten our belts in this age of the "new normal", it's time we leave ice on the side and slake our thirst with lukewarm tap from now on?