Coca-Cola’s “Heist”–a charming animation/live-action spot in which flora and a community of insects team to open a bottle of Coke after procuring it from a napping picnicker–won the coveted primetime commercial Emmy on Saturday evening (9/12) during the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences’ Creative Arts Awards ceremony at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles.
Todd Mueller and Kylie Matulick of Psyop directed “Heist,” which debuted during this year’s Super Bowl telecast, for Wieden + Kennedy (W+K), Portland, Ore.
Members of the W+K creative team talked to SHOOT about “Heist” shortly after learning it had been nominated. Lee Jennings, a W+K art director on “Heist,” noted that he and his agency colleagues were conscious of it being a Super Bowl commercial. So they cut against the grain and intentionally made the spot start very quiet, with soft classical music, representing a departure from the in-your-face/rock/pop Super Bowl norm. “There was the temptation to put up a big expensive pop song,” Jennings recalled. “We had even been considering a song from The Beatles. But we went with orchestral and classical throughout, and that worked the best.”
Jennings added that there were visual temptations which W+K also resisted. “With an animation piece, you can be tempted to be a little more cartoony. We tried hard to instead make it Planet Earth-like animation, very realistic, and I think that helped the spot strike a responsive chord.”
W+K senior producer Matt Hunnicutt credited Psyop for its contributions to “Heist.” “We had a lot of success with them on previous jobs for Coca-Cola, so it was a no brainer to work with them again,” he related. “They made the animation fun and clever, creating a feel-good platform which helped us introduce Coke’s new tagline, ‘Open Happiness.'”
Among the alluded to prior collaborations between W+K and Psyop on Coca-Cola was the lauded “Happiness Factory” (for W+K, Amsterdam), which earned an Emmy nomination in 2007.
John Leverence, senior VP, awards, for the Television Academy, observed that “Heist” is “reminiscent” of “Happiness Factory” in that it is “wonderfully and imaginatively done. Wieden has given us another wonderfully clever fantasy with ‘Heist,” a midsummer night’s dream only it’s the afternoon in which insects and plant life are the fairies who act with assembly line precision to move a bottle of Coke through a series of Rube Goldberg steps, and then open the bottle to refresh the world they’re in.”
Hunnicutt affirmed that the brand itself makes W+K’s job easier. “You can naturally do feel-good work because you’re walking into a brand that people know, trust and love. So you can go to places like where ‘Heist” takes you and it just feels right.”
Formidable field
To win the ’09 primetime spot Emmy, “Heist” topped a field of eight-nominated commercials. While there are usually five nominees in this category, the judging yielded eight nominations as five commercials tied for fourth place in the voting tally.
W+K had three of the nominated ads: Coke’s “Heist” as well as CareerBuilder.com’s “Tips” (which was directed by Tom Kuntz of MJZ); and Nike’s “Bottled Courage” (directed by Ralf Schmerberg of @radical.media). DDB Chicago had two nominated commercials: Budweiser’s “Circus” (helmed by Joe Pytka of PYTKA); and a web spot for Bud Light, “Magazine Buyer” (directed by Erich Joiner of Tool of North America). And scoring single nominations were: Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco, for Sprint/Nextel’s “Wedding” (directed by Jim Jenkins of O Positive Films); Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Miami and Boulder, Colo., for Hulu’s “Alec In Huluwood” (directed by Peter Berg of Pony Show Entertainment); and Ogilvy & Mather, New York, for AmEx’s “Airport Lounge” (directed by Bryan Buckley of Hungry Man).
Other Winners
Beyond the Emmy commercials category, other artisans involved in the ad biz scored honors. For example, Jamie Caliri–who directs commercials via Duck Studios, Los Angeles-earned the Emmy Award for outstanding main title sequence on the strength of his work as director/DP/editor/main digital compositor on the main titles for Showtime series United States of Tara.
In the category of outstanding short form picture editing, there was a tie between two entries: the Stand Up To Cancer special, and a motion picture montage for the 81st Annual Academy Awards. The former was edited by David Brodie of Rock Paper Scissors, Santa Monica, and Andy Grieve. And the Academy Awards’ montage was cut by Hal Honigsberg who is on the roster of Chrome, Santa Monica.
Also the HBO movie Taking Chance, the directorial debut of Ross Katz, who earlier this year signed with production house TWC for spot representation, won the Emmy for outstanding single-camera picture editing for a miniseries or movie (Brian A. Kates, ACE). Taking Chance fell short in five other Creative Arts Emmy categories (music composition, sound editing, sound mixing, main title design, art direction).
However Taking Chance is still in the running for major honors during next Sunday’s (9/20) televised primetime Emmy Award ceremony, including for best made for TV movie, best director of a miniseries, movie or dramatic special, best lead actor in a telefilm (Kevin Bacon) and outstanding writing for a miniseries, movie or dramatic special. Katz wrote the screenplay along with Lt. Col. Michael R. Strobl, USMC (retired). Taking Chance received a total of 10 Emmy nominations.
Helmer Katz was profiled earlier this year (3/20) in SHOOT‘s Spring Directors Series and earned inclusion in our 7th annual New Directors Showcase (SHOOT, 5/22).
