That’s amore

what does a commercial production team do to follow up a commercial adventure with Cree dialogue and English subtitles called ‘Dances With Weetabix’?

Why, ‘Love Story,’ of course, as melodramatic as the Ali McGraw-Ryan O’Neal film version, but with the flouncy fun of an ‘overwrought Italian b movie.’ And it comes complete with over-the-top acting, feisty dialogue in Italian, and English subtitles only loosely connected to the words being spoken.

Che? you ask, che?

Honest, it’s a Weetabix commercial. LTB Productions’ Phil Kates has gleefully directed this spot for the British client, aware all the while that viewers have to be wide awake, free from the mind-numbing clicker zone, if they’re going to get the point.

From the start of the creative process, which emanated from the offices of Toronto’s Wolf Advertising, ‘the question was,’ says Kates, ‘are people going to understand that what the subtitles say is not what the actors are saying?’ Kates, writer Al Moran and creative/art director Larry Wolf had to assume most people would realize the spot is funny because the dialogue is more than less out of sync with the subtitles.

That’s where the talents of the director, dop and editor become critical – bringing the feel of this type of Italian film to a 30-second commercial. Talk about over-the-top. The actors’ vocal inflections, hand motions and movements bring ‘passionate’ to a new plateau, the dramatic back-and-forth cutting exaggerates the actors’ work and, of course, the director sets it all in motion by articulating the look and feel he wants to achieve.

‘Philip is a student of American and European films,’ says ltb exec producer William Cranor. ‘He’s obsessed with them.’ Cranor goes on to say it’s no coincidence the spot has a passionate Italian flavor and an Antonioni look.

The story involves a man imploring his woman not to leave him, and he’s offering a new and improved cereal as one reason for her to stay. Pathetically infatuated, he (actor Lorenzo Vallecchi) begs ‘ma tresore’ to stay, but she expects he’ll only come up with soggy bran flakes. Enter a Kates improvisation, sight gag #1 as Vallecchi suddenly stops yacking, tosses his head back and shouts, ‘Ha, ha, ha!’ Cut to sight gag #2: leading lady Claire Cellucci (turning a faint blue on a cold outdoor shoot by Lake Ontario at the Sunnyside Bathing Pavilion) cuts short his triumph, whap, with a brisk smack across the chops. (On slo-mo replay you can see she really did wallop him.)

Next thing you know, it’s back to the regular script with the love lights on again and Vallecchi sensuously feeding Weetabix to Cellucci. The subtitles, ever a source of hilarity, also manage to introduce product information into the story, making the spot all the funnier. Cut to the long-shot in the finale. The couple appears to be crossing a corridor from one room to another. It’s priceless – she covers the distance with a regal strut and he’s behind, bent forward, distinctly servile, with his hands on her hips as she leads him on.

Molto bene.

Just the thing for those of us able to see the tv through bleary, hung over eyes when the spot launches at the beginning of ’94.

Dora Sesler produced for ltb and the agency. Doug Koch shot the shots, Peer Engelhardt of Reel Ideas crafted the edit and Deschamps Recording Studios handled sound recording and mix (including recording wild lines in High Park). Chris Stone Audio put the music together and Kim Everest at Powerhouse Casting assembled the talent. Transfer and on-line was done at Magnetic North. ST