The stakes are high come Super Bowl Sunday—to the tune of some $4 million per 30-second timeslot during last month’s Big Game telecast on Fox.
The pricetag, though, had some major eyeball justification, drawing 111.5 million viewers, making Super Bowl XLVIII the most watched TV show in U.S. history. In an era of media fragmentation, such a massive shared audience experience is rare and coveted. Making the TV event even more valuable is the fact that the majority of viewers look forward to the commercials.
Right after the Super Bowl, SHOOT surveyed agency creatives regarding their assessment of this year’s crop of Super Sunday commercials. (The “Monday Morning Quarterbacking” feature appeared on SHOOTonline, 2/3.) For that survey, SHOOT sounded out creative artisans whose agencies did not have any commercials on this year’s Big Game so as to get unvarnished, apolitical takes on the advertising.
Now, though, we take a 180-degree turn on perspectives, seeking out those who are partial–artisans who had a hand in the latest batch of Super Bowl spots. SHOOT asked what were the biggest creative challenges posed to them by their Super Bowl ads. Here’s a sampling of their feedback (edited, with full responses appearing in the SHOOT>e.dition and online):
Frank Effron, editor, Cut+Run
Agency Argonaut had a great concept with “Wings”, where engineers earn wings every time a VW reaches 100,000 miles. The two main challenges for the edit were finding the right flow for the engineers featured in the edit, and deciding which engineers made the cut and which ones didn’t. Tom Kuntz [a director at MJZ] shot the engineers relying on in-camera wings—the talent was rigged with prosthetics—for believability. There’s something to be said for the true reaction and timing of performances when working with actual props and there were so many exceptional moments from which to choose. The Mill then added the finishing touches to the wings so the look is seamless. When you see the work on screen during the Super Bowl, it’s certainly thrilling. You know it is one of the times that the general public really looks forward to watching commercials and appreciates the level of entertainment that advertising can bring.
Siggy Ferstl, colorist, Company 3
When I first saw the footage for the “Strike” spot for the Maserati Ghibli, I was struck by its cinematic images. Director David Gordon Green [of production house Chelsea] created a powerful feeling using Quvenzhané Wallis, the young girl who starred in Beasts of the Southern Wild, delivering lines in a raspy whisper about how “being clever is more important than being the biggest kid in the neighborhood.” In the reveal, we find out that this is Maserati’s approach–surprising the market with its new, more affordable sports car.
Scott Glenn, creative director, HUM
Growing up with The Matrix, the opportunity to partner with our talented friends at David&Goliath on Kia’s “The Truth” Super Bowl ad was a truly exciting experience for everyone at HUM. An impassioned exercise in teamwork, the job demanded a carefully coordinated collaboration between two of our A-list composers, our sound designer, Dan Hart, and one mind-blowingly talented opera singer whom we sourced. The opera vocal itself was recorded from a single take—owner Jeff Koz described it as the most spine-tingling vocal performance in our studio’s 20-year history. We also brought the opera singer with us to the shoot to work with Laurence Fishburne directly and make his delivery as realistic as possible. Laurence nailed the performance, though we continued to work after the shoot to make the on-camera sync completely flawless, as we felt very strongly that believability was a key component to success.
Jono Griffith, editor, Union Editorial/Circus
Working with such experienced people makes the process a joy and an education no matter how high pressure the job is—but when editing any film, generally the challenge is the same and that’s to get everyone involved in the production happy and proud, including myself. All of that takes time which, of course, is usually in short supply. So getting everyone on the same page quickly is important, specifically in the case of “The Truth” [for Kia]. I would say editing Puccini was pretty painful. It’s such an emotionally perfect arc that any tampering always felt a bit like a slap in the face. Also, getting all the thumbs up on the car angles took a while…there were lots of angles and lots of thumbs!”
Brent Nichols, executive creative director, Elias
For the Audi “Doberhuahua” spot, we wanted to create a suspense-building, blockbuster action-film type composition. The spot is intentionally tongue-in-cheek, so we wanted to get a little bit of a kitschy overdramatic vibe without going too far. We didn’t want it to be a cartoon or a parody, but we also couldn’t make it too dark. We had to find the sweet spot, which you can only do through trial and error and back and forth with the client. Because it’s the Super Bowl, the agency and client are even more present and hands-on throughout the creative process. They took the time to come to the studio and get involved the old fashioned way.
Keeping with the B-movie spirit but on a grand scale, we brought in elements to give it the feel of an actual film score. In order to have the arrangement sound as authentic as possible, we decided to record with real strings played by a live orchestra. We’d like to think the result is a balanced Hitchcockian composition with a nod to John Williams and Danny Elfman.
Nicolas Winding Refn, director, Stink
Each project brings the obvious challenges but creativity involves taking your weaknesses and turning them into strengths [for the H&M spot featuring David Beckham]. In that way, there are no such things as challenges, only obstacles and achievements.
Matt Smukler, director, Community Films
The biggest challenge for me [on Cheerios’ “Gracie”] was getting the tone right after the success of the first [Cheerios] spot. The script we were working with was nuanced and subtle (in a great way) and so it was all about capturing Grace’s intelligence and incredible poker face. Which, in the end wasn’t much of a challenge at all.
Jeff Tremaine, director, HeLo
The biggest challenge of this whole thing [Bud Light’s “Epic Night”] is the fact that we did it “real.” Our mark, Ian, had no idea he was being filmed and much less in a Super Bowl commercial. This was a huge, highly coordinated production; we had 58 cameras shooting in over 10 locations, and we had to figure out ways to hide all those cameras and leapfrog cameramen to stay ahead of Ian the whole time. Another challenge was directing all the A-list talent without ever seeing them, through earwigs and microphones. Ultimately, this was the effort of about 600 people against one guy, and to pull it off without a hiccup was truly a miracle.”
Jim Ulbrich, editor, Beast Editorial
What was interesting about “Gracie” for Cheerios was that while it might be getting attention for being about a “biracial family,” the key is that the biracial element is not an issue for the characters. It was very important for the entire team, from General Mills to all the creatives at Saatchi NY, and the director Matt Smukler that this slice of life not jump out as making some kind of a statement, which could easily undo the story. Gracie’s parents inform her she’s going to have a baby brother. What’s she going to say to that? Is her response going to convey some kind of “message” that defines this family along racial lines or will it be something any little girl, in any kind of family, might say? After a beat, she announces she also wants a puppy. Race is irrelevant. Simply holding on a shot a moment too long, or cutting away a few frames too soon, could have resulted in a different experience for the viewer. It was gratifying that there was such trust among the whole team, from Matt’s trust in me to the agency’s trust in Matt and all the way up to the people at General Mills. What’s nice is the wonderful response the spot has received validates that trust all around.
Woods, director, Recommended
When I was approached with the Heinz script, I was having a hard time processing what the spot wanted to be. It was a feel good spot that had some “nice” scenes of people camping, at a wedding and a coffee shop, and at the same time there were these lighter and humorous scenes of wise guys at a hotdog stand and a guy in a full body cast. Was this a feel good spot or comedy? I knew that the granny at the end making a familiar sound with a plastic bottle would be the comedic bit, but the greatest creative challenge was letting go of the instinct to make the nicer scenes funny, and trusting the overall idea and ending of the spot. It’s tough to imagine that you are shooting comedy when you are standing in this beautiful location in South Africa, filming a happy camping family around a campfire at sunset.
