Spot for Jaguar's XKR done by our pals Johnson & Wolverton at EuroRSCG in New York. This has been out for awhile, but I hadn't seen it before they returned to Portland last week to keynote our local AIGA chapter's vendor show. The YouTube doesn't do it justice (especially since the uploader didn't maintain the true aspect ratio; the original was done in widescreen and is scaled vertically here so that the car looks crap), but you get a sense of the piece's rich surface. I am always amazed at how J&W bring a transcendent print sensibility to film, and delighted at their omnivorous approach to process: the dude with the midlands accent at the beginning is the actual driver of the car; they had a camera riding shotgun with him which picked up his chatter on its condenser mike. This could have and would have been ignored by a different filmmaker, but they noticed that there was something about his voice that was perfect for the brand. English, but not posh, and not that Guy-Ritchie-fake-cockney thing either. He sounds tough and professional, like a fighter pilot. Totally silly, if you break it down, but perfect in the context of the spot.
This kind of thinking has always been hallmark of J&W's work: production events like shoots are really exercises in raw material gathering, and are carefully planned to allow for lucky accidents, rather than hew tightly to a storyboard. The real work happens back at the shop. All filmmakers work this way to an extent, and certainly editors play a greater part in the success or failure of a work than most layfolks realize (the editor here was Neil Gust, by the way; a respected musician and former staffer at J&W Portland and now an independent editor in NYC), but my sense is that J&W push production earlier in their process than most, so that there's more time to tinker and generate additional material. Nothing gets ignored.
Anyway, great spot. The only downside is that I've had to stand Conahan hiding behind walls in our offices at regular intervals throughout the day and calling out "I'm in the tunnel now, buddy." More on J&W's presentation shortly.
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