When you were in high school, did you ever wonder what it would be like to trade places and styles with someone in another clique? Directing collective Southpaw (Jake Wheeler, Jeff Sikaitas and Jeff Stamp) of Basecamp Creates, NYC, and Saatchi and Saatchi New York are giving teens at a New Jersey high school a chance to do just that in a web-based reality series they created for retailer JCPenney. Launched last month, Flipped (www.jcp.com/c7p) shows teenagers from one clique being restyled as a member of another clique by denim designers Chip & Pepper, who act as hosts of the series. The series was designed to promote a new line of apparel exclusive to JCPenney, C7P, designed by Chip & Pepper.
The first webisode focuses on two different groups of teen girls: The Divas are very fashion and trend conscious, while the Retros wear ripped jeans and black tees. One member of the Divas is remade into a Retro, while a Retro is glammed into a Diva. In subsequent episodes the boys are flipped.
“JCPenney didn’t ask for an online reality series. We approached them to step into the world of branded entertainment. From the beginning they really loved it,” explained Matt Atkatz, creative director at Saatchi & Saatchi NY.
Wheeler applauded the clients’ willingness to try new things with the web. “A lot of people make the mistake of how they approach the medium,” he said. “There’s a big difference between repurposing content and making dedicated content. Their attitude was, ‘Let’s not just throw things against the wall and make them stick, let’s go into this web world where we think our demographic is and really try to hook them with a dedicated specific production.'”
Dealing with reality
With no prepro and no script, the project was a bit daunting. “There are so many variables outside of your control. The idea is to capture reality so you don’t go in exactly knowing what you are going to shoot. I have to admit even after it was all shot there was still this question of, ‘What did we capture?'” said Atkatz. “Of course there were fantastic moments when we were shooting, but you are still figuring out on the fly how it’s going to all assemble together into a story. It’s an interesting challenge for the directors and for the editor to put this together in a story that makes sense and has a compelling narrative flow.”
He said he interviewed quite a few directors but Southpaw rose to the top with their ideas to support the concept. It was their idea to focus not just on the kids but their cliques as well. The original brief called for flipping one kid–not just into another group–but also at a different school. Southpaw saw that the series needed a point of reference for the kids who are flipped. They wanted to capture the clique they came from in order to see how the experience of being flipped affected them.
Their documentary experience also served them well on this project. They knew how to establish trust with the kids and get them to relax and open up. One of them stuck with boys all the time and one stayed with the girls, and then the other made sure there was consistency between the story arcs. It helped the kids get comfortable more quickly. Southpaw also minimized the amount of people around the kids during the shoot so they felt like they could be themselves.
The series was shot over a five-day period–two days at the high school, two days with the cast off school grounds, and one day at Chip and Pepper’s L.A. studio. Sixty hours of footage was edited into eight four-minute episodes by New York-based Chemistry editors Illya Magazanin and Chuck Divak. The footage was shot in HD because it was also used for a theater trailer.
In addition to the webisodes, the interactive website features a C7P stylebook, an up close and personal look at Chip & Pepper, a chance to sign up for updates about the reality series, and a Class of 08 section, where visitors can explore different styles, from punk rock to preppy, and then shop the looks.
“We are hoping kids will start to take this idea of experimenting and mixing up their style a little bit more seriously,” Atkatz said. “There is a secondary goal here and it’s a little bit of an equality message. Being different isn’t really that different after all.”
Credits
Client JCPenney Agency Saatchi & Saatchi NY Tony Granger, chief creative officer; Matt Atkatz, creative director; Andrew Smith, director of interactive; Todd Levin, Aryan Aminzadeh, Ethan Schmidt, copywriters; Stephen Lee, Kristin Graham, Ryan Gury, art directors; Colin Pearsall, executive producer; Peter Ostella, Craig Poplar, producers Production Basecamp Creates NYC Southpaw (Jeff Stamp, Jeff Sikaitis, Jake Wheeler), directors; Brent Perlman, executive producer; Christian Mack, Constantine Economides, DP’s / Cameramen; Aaron Canto, production supervisor Editorial Chemistry, NYC Ilya Magazanin, Chuck Divak, editors.
