112
february 2009
february 2009
shots sampler
keith rose diamond in the rough fast-track talent porsche david awards top dog joaquin baca-asay
12/12/08 16:50:58
contents 0 6
9 instrumentarium
douleurs 10 san frontiers
12 ac/dc
26 radiohead
27 shots ident
28 bose
32 dan tobin smith
south africa 36 keith rose
40 leigh ogilvie
43 chris gotz
46 mitch stratten
62 big balls
SH112_p06-7.contents.indd 6
9/12/08 13:06:27
0 7 contents
14 stella artois
16 joaquin baca-asay
23 kris moyes
30 jef loeb
51 trevor clarence
54 centraal beheer
58 guard brothers
64 steve gandolfi
66 snickers
68 rosie arnold
new directors 75 porsche david awards 77 mario zozin SH112_p06-7.contents.indd 7
80 thilo ewers
82 berlin 9/12/08 13:07:21
creative showcase 1 0 commercials review
Sometimes animation can be so powerful.
Borders) fights against emotional and
first time the duo have worked together
within the production timetable, so we
It can go places live action can’t dream of
physical pain in France and around the
as directors. It was inspired by a print ad
decided to transpose this universe into
and communicate a depth of emotion
world. It is led by medics and the goal of
created by TBWA creatives Stephane
something more ‘designed’, but where
that would be lost in real-life film.
this campaign is to get 50,000
Lecoq and Alban Penicault.
the light, matter and behaviour would
This achingly poignant spot, by TBWA\
signatures on a petition for the French
Gamer explains: “The brief involved using
render a realistic texture.”
Map, part of TBWA\France, for French
government to present to the UN for
the concept developed in the earlier print
The animation house produced and post-
NGO Douleurs Sans Frontieres, is simply
‘Stop Pain’ to become a resolution voted
campaign. It was important not to point a
produced the images over a period of
called Stop Pain. It depicts a young child
on at the General Assembly.
finger at a particular country or region.
two and a half months, using the skills of
walking alongside his sickly, coughing
The ad has already been running on TV
To avoid this, we had to create a sense of
Gamer and Remuzat – working with Max
mother through a derelict landscape.
and in cinemas across France, but it will
being in a clearly underprivileged
and After Effects – plus 14 graphic artists
Eventually she collapses and dies, and he
be airing in other countries where DSF
country while remaining universal.”
who were involved at different stages of
is abandoned to struggle against snipers,
has outposts, including Angola and
The date of delivery was immovable:
the production.
bombs and earthquakes alone.
Cambodia. The campaign is also online,
October 20, the Global Day Against Pain.
At the end, the camera pulls back to
both on DSF’s own website (www.
“We worked in a somewhat unusual
reveal that he is walking on a giant
douleurs.org) and the agency’s website.
manner, since we wrote the film in
treadmill – a powerful image to
It has also been picked up by various
collaboration with the agency,” Gamer
communicate how the cycle of suffering
blogs – including, extraordinarily, that of
continues. “The main idea was to create
can repeat itself over and over.
rapper Kanye West.
a sense of an unending cycle, without
Alexandre Calogeropoulos, producer of
“We have received lots of enquiries
divulging the final revelation too early:
the Epica award-winning spot at Paris-
about the film,” says Calogeropoulos.
the treadmill. The print versions were
based animation house Space Patrol,
The spot complements a series of print
done realistically, which presented us
comments: “It was three months of hard
ads that began featuring in French
with a problem: producing a minute of
work, but it was good to work for them.”
publications in April. It was directed by
animation in a highly realistic setting.
Douleurs Sans Frontieres (Pain Without
Philippe Gamer and Fred Remuzat – the
There was no possibility of shooting
SH112_P10-11_showcase.indd 10
11/12/08 18:20:30
joaquin
baca-asay
joaquin baca-asay 1 7 director profile
SH112_P16-20 BacaAsayx.indd 17
11/12/08 18:25:32
director profile 1 8 joaquin baca-asay
“When I was about 12 or 13 my mother started taking me to the two little arthouse cinemas in Boulder to watch these amazing experimental films. As a kid seeing these crazy, weird, little movies, I remember thinking I’d like to be a director, but I didn’t really take it seriously.”
Over the course of our two-hour phone conversation, Joaquin Baca-Asay dropped references to the celebrities of the commercials industry with a pace and nonchalance that left me in no doubt that the person I was talking to was very accomplished indeed. Not that he goes about it in an ostentatious way. At times during the call he sounded humbled and grateful, as though when name-checking Mike Mills, or Mark Romanek, he found himself caught in the glaring headlights of his own success for the first time – recollections as fresh for him in the telling as they were to me. Born in Boulder, Colorado, Baca-Asay spent his formative years growing up in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains. Although his parents divorced when he was three and he stayed with his mother, Baca-Asay continued to visit his father in Arizona and later New Mexico. “I grew up in a really creative environment,” he recalls. “My father’s a sculptor and my mother’s always been a really creative person, so art was always an assumed possible career for me growing up.” As a child, Baca-Asay says he remembers finding his way into his father’s art studio where he’d sit experimenting with paints and playing with different materials. “I’d be there beside him while he was doing his work. It was something we had in common – a way of communicating.” With the guidance of his cinephile mother, Baca-Asay discovered the joys of alternative cinema. “When I was about 12 or 13 my mother started taking me to the two little arthouse cinemas in Boulder to watch these amazing experimental films. The one that stuck with me was Peter Weir’s The Last Wave. As a kid seeing these crazy, weird, little movies, I remember thinking I’d like to be a director, but I didn’t really take it seriously.” The second great cinematic influence on the young Joaquin was Jim Jarmusch’s 1986 classic, Down by Law, which included a turn by the gruffvoiced Tom Waits. “I was about 17 when Down by Law came out. At the time I was doing a lot of black and white photography so the film spoke to me immediately,” says Baca-Asay. “It’s perfectly executed, a master work, but it looks so simple. As a young guy I could relate to how it was made and I could imagine myself creating something similar so that was a big leap for me.”
SH112_P16-20 BacaAsayx.indd 18
11/12/08 18:25:41
title sequence 2 7 competition
new identity shots 112 title sequence Explosion Director Luc Janin
There’s nothing we love more than some
collecting and flying over different landscapes
including the shoot of the final scene with the
shameless self-promotion — except maybe
before ultimately converging into a television set
exploding television. “We stuffed the TVs with
promoting the creative minds who do so well
displaying the shots logo — which then explodes.
explosives and a wide variety of objects,
promoting us. In this respect, this issue’s shots
Janin says: “What appealed was being able to
including copies of shots Magazine and DVDs,
ident is something special. From the visionary
reveal this gigantic mass of media as images
and an indestructible rubber duck that survived
talent of director Luc Janin, it comes just in time
literally being condensed into shots.”
all the explosions,” he says.
to celebrate the launch of shots’ revamped
The inspiration for the spot came while Janin was
Janin is currently busy shooting a French musical
website, which is full of all the treats you’ve come
playing around in Photoshop. “Working on stills
and a music video for the Stereophonics, while
to expect from shots, but with a fancy new face.
often brings me ideas for moving pictures,” he
also working on his own scripts. We, meanwhile,
Collaboration between shots, Janin and his
explains, describing how the cloud was developed
are left giddy with our fabulous ident and
production company Annex Films forged a
from a massive library of cut-out static images
revamped website — two things we’re more than
startling spot that’s a sparkling showcase of what
and video to provide the frenetic feeling of the
happy to share.
shots — and our shiny, revitalised website — has
collection. “I wanted to create a sense of anarchy
If you’d like to maintain this happiness and want
to offer. Which is, in a nutshell, the best creative
and randomness,” he says.
to create an ident for shots, feel free. Just be
work in the world.
As a true homage to shots, Janin made sure to
sure to send it in by January 9. All past spots can
Janin’s spot features a cloud of various items
include us in every aspect of the piece —
be found on the ident page of our website. KH
shoot for shots For more info on anything to do with the competition, email isobel@shots.net Send your films to Ident Competition, shots, Greater London House, Hampstead Road, London NW1 7EJ, United Kingdom
SH112_P27_IDENT.indd 27
11/12/08 18:32:31
south africa 4 6 mitch stratten
Left: Stratten’s promo for Oh Diamond, Diamond, Thou Little Knowest The Mischief Thou Hast Done, for his own music act, Norden
mechanical engineering and went and built the dog himself. The resulting video, featured in shots 104, is a brilliant but strange Aphex Twin-like offering that’s just the wrong side of weird. In a good way. Stratten can turn his hands to most creative things, and the term ‘fingers in many pies’ could well be invented for him. As well as being a director of commercials, a musician and music promo director, he also makes skateboard films, sculpts, designs websites, works in post production and creates sophisticated new camera rigs. It makes you tired just thinking about it. Brought up in Johannesburg, Stratten went to art school before being employed by a design company in South Africa, who had been given some of his “B-grade, VHS” films and liked what they saw. It was there that he learned about post production, before leaving South Africa and working for Fabrica in Italy, then record label
south africa mitch stratten director Catch him if you can. Mitch Stratten is a hard man to pin
down as he hurls himself between ads, music promos, short
Quartermass in Belgium. From there it was back to South Africa to work at production company
Terraplane, where he took on his first ad directing
films, sculptures and, er, a time machine. Danny Edwards
jobs, before deciding on an 18-month sojourn to
nets an enigmatic but prolific talent... with bells on
work on some personal projects. Though full of praise for the commercials
photograph: Sally newsom, rachel santoro
industry now, initially Stratten was unsure of Mitch Stratten is tired. Not the up-too-early or in-bed-too-late kind of tired.
making the leap into the world of advertising because it went against his
More a kind of six-month-hard-slog-technologically-mind-bending-all-
instincts. “I had a problem with it because I felt like I didn’t want to sell out,”
consuming-advertising campaign kind of tired. He has recently completed
he says. “What I’ve come to realise though is that if you can do cool stuff in
a spot for Toshiba that came about after he invented a 200-camera, circular
a commercial realm then it can still be amazing.”
rig called Timesculpture.
Recent ‘amazing’ projects include trying to invent a whole new way of
It wasn’t easy, although the 31-year-old South African is no stranger to
shooting film. The Timesculpture rig was something that, in theory, Stratten
taking on projects most of us would baulk at. When making the video for the
thought could be done but, in practice, was a headache. Basically,
elaborately titled, Oh Diamond, Diamond, Thou Little Knowest The Mischief
Timesculpture is 200 cameras set in a circle – with the actors in the middle –
Thou Hast Done for Nodern (his own musical pseudonym, by the way)
and this setup gives a 360-degree rotational view of the action.
Stratten built the motorised, odd-looking dog that stars in the promo
Matt Buels, managing director at Hungry Man – to which Stratten is signed
because, well... let him explain. “I suppose all I really wanted to do was make
for representation everywhere except South Africa, where he represents
a video with this dog running, a technical thing,” he explains. “I built it in my
himself – says that the idea of Timesculpture was something that he found
flat in Johannesburg. I didn’t really wanted to make it myself, but I got some
extremely interesting. “We seriously thought about taking on the cost of the
quotes in from people like The Jim Henson Company and places like that,
project ourselves because I was really taken with the idea and we wondered
and was quoted around £50,000. There was no way I could afford that.”
what it would really take to pull it off,” he says. “We knew we were going to
God loves a trier, and so Stratten set about teaching himself the basics of
have to develop the technology ourselves, which isn’t necessarily
SH112_p46-47_SA_Stratten.indd 46
12/12/08 09:32:10
mitch stratten 4 7 south africa
“I wanted to make a video with this dog running... a technical thing. I built it in my flat in Johannesburg. I didn’t want to make it myself, so I got some quotes in from people like The Jim Henson Company. I was quoted around £50,000. There was no way I
a
could afford that.”
SH112_p46-47_SA_Stratten.indd 47
12/12/08 09:32:14
centraal beheer 5 5 special feature
It’s November. It’s cold. My fingers have seized up over my keyboard.
company’s origins as an administrative operation for small businesses) was a
Ice is forming on the inside of the windows and the boiler is broken.
small, local, direct insurance company based in Apeldoorn. Being direct –
Obviously, if I were in the Netherlands, I’d just call Apeldoorn. But I’m not, I
selling straight to the consumer rather than via a broker – was a distinct
live in deepest Northamptonshire in the UK, so I’m stuffed…
disadvantage at the time, when most insurance in the Netherlands was
In Holland, Apeldoorn is synonymous with insurance. An unremarkable,
supplied by a range of insurance giants and sold via an army of independent
average-sized town in the middle of the country, it is the base for the
reps on mopeds who turned up on people’s doorsteps.
Netherlands’ most popular insurance company, Centraal Beheer, and thus
Christiaan van Mansfeld, deputy managing director of DDB Amsterdam, who
cradle to one of the most iconic Dutch advertising campaigns in recent years.
now heads the account, recalls: “Everyone [then] had their own insurance
Next year will be the 20th anniversary of DDB Amsterdam’s handling of the
salesman who was almost a household friend because he visited clients so
business. But the story actually began around 25 years ago, when Centraal
regularly. Centraal Beheer wanted to be that house friend too. Open,
Beheer (roughly translated as Central Management, referring to the
sympathetic and reliable.”
silver service
illustration: ben challenor, www.eyecandy.co.uk
There can’t be many campaigns which for 25 years consistently earn client and audience praise for their wit and irreverance. More striking still when the ads are about insurance, says Belinda Archer
SH112_p54-57_Beheer.indd 55
12/12/08 09:46:45
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