Revisiting the Velvet Bowels of Advertising Part 3: King

OK so after Cel One things were really started to get going. We were running the jobs out of our house. PAs and crew folks running up and down the 39 steps to the little old house on Gilham street. We had one tiny bathroom. It got a work out. Who cleaned the place? I dunno I guess we did. Yow.

Another set of three great ideas this time from Jim Carey´s band of loonies at Cole and Weber. Great simple idea. And no cuts. 1 take. No coverage nada. Gutsy! And... Cheap!

Norman Bonney one of my oldest friends came up from the Bay Area to cover my butt as assistant director. After his stint as an AD Mr. Bonney went on to be one of the countries best DPs.

The dog thing. Listen here's the deal. We were setting up and although I had an idea that I wanted a dog in the spot I didn't really have any idea of what to do with it other than be a prop. So I set the dog "Suzy" up next to the actor whose name I think was Richard and we did a rehearsal. So we figured out that it was really funnier if the King stood up from his lawn chair and then sat down again after his speech. So then I get this idea to have Suzy stand up and sit down exactly at the same time as the King. Now Suzy was just a dog, not a movie dog, just a pet. I ask Suzy's owner if she thinks Suzy could do this. She says that she's not sure but let's try. Suzy did it like clock work for over 30 takes! Why 30 takes? Well that's one of mysteries of advertising. I think we used the second take. We always use the second take.

OK regarding the background. At that time I was really interested in sort of secret deep background action. Originally we were going to have a forced perspective two story house built to go behind the fence at the back of the yard. I wanted to put people hanging out the window doing something. Accidentally dropping babies... I don't know. But since the house was maybe 1/2 scale we'd have to to put 1/2 scale people in the house. The solution... midgets. I got the idea from reading about a scene in F.W. Murnau's "Sunrise." Well the house idea turned out to be too expensive so that was it for the midgets. Until I came up with the idea of two midgets dressed as children beating the heck of each other in a wading pool again way back by the far fence wall. Since Richard was black I thought they would have to be black too. At that time Portland officially had around 17 black people living there and we had one playing the king. Basically there were no black midgets in the greater Portland area so that idea was out. The midget idea woud resurface in another Lottery spot, bu that is another story. However I had another great idea. Why not have this really big maple tree cross the frame back behind the far fence. You know, just loping along like it was out for walk or something.

So we took a construction crane and put a really big tree on this little skateboard wheel dolly Walt Dimick had handcrafted with his Dad I think. This in turn went on this track that was also hand built by Walt. Anyway we gave the dolly a shove and being designed to carry maybe 200 lbs and not 2000 lbs. the wheels of course collapsed immediately. So that was it for deep background action as well as Walt's dolly.

To see how the shot would all work art director Ray DiCarlo and I had previously set up the shot at Laurelhurst park which is where as a young child I remember once getting beat up in the wading pool... no not by an African American midget but by a girl. See there is a reason for everything.

Laurelhurst Park was OK but there were too many trees that would compete with the big leafy one that would be scooting across the frame so I then had another idea which was that we should shoot this in the world's biggest open backyard. So we shot out at Willamette Turf Farm which is where they grow hundreds and hundreds of acres of grass. Clean green as far as the eye could see.

In retrospect I wonder how everybody put up these crazy ideas. I never heard Ray ever say, "Come on... you want a giant maple tree to saunter across the frame like it's out for a Sunday walk? Are you nuts?" Well the correct answer would have been, "Well yes, actually I am."

And finally because of YOUTUBE the beginning pan over is a little hunky. My move was much smoother. And after 30 takes I would hope it would be!