tackles a tough subject

Blocking out shots for her first bona fide, client-in-the-wings commercial shoot, director Barbara Cole did not equivocate. The camera’s focus should be on the children, the children, the kids.

Forget about any background detail, she says. When you’re doing a psa for a disease, and the creative calls for little ones to explain what they’re sick with, then little faces, bodies, mouths and fidgeting feet are all we need to see.

Cole, working for The Partners’ Film Company, decided simply to ‘take these children, the fact that they have liver disease and are so innocent and contrast that with the fact that they know so much’ about these diseases.

The spots, English and French 30s for the Canadian Liver Foundation, are intended to remind viewers that sometimes little patients have to learn a lot about multi-syllabic diseases, a lot more than the adults who provide the donations to fund research. Cole decided the best way to make the point was to ‘go after the charm of these sweet children.’

In fact, the little actor-troopers delivering the lines in the spots came through for Cole, especially the little moppet who pronounced a difficult name, all the while gamely clasping a little puppy to her nervous self. The spots consist of a series of close-ups of children – or their feet swinging or mouths forming words – making statements about liver diseases afflicting youngsters. It closes with a live daisy turning into the logo flower on the foundation’s letterhead as the voice-over asks for donations.

The spots are set to air mid-April. Creative is by Backer Spielvogel Bates’ associate creative director/writer Margo Northgate and art director Jerry Smith, with Rick Tuer producing for bsb. For Partners’, Stan Mestel served as dop, with Robert Alldis editing, Jennifer Base producing and Michael Schwartz as exec producer. Command Post did the transfer and on-line took place at Scene By Scene. David Fleury set the pix to music.

Having a psa for her first job (beyond the beautiful demo spots on her reel, particularly ‘Reunion,’ on spec for Canadian Airlines showcasing innate strengths in talent direction, ambient lighting and pacing) doesn’t phase Cole one bit. ‘All the experience I can get is worthwhile,’ she says, adding that every minute on the set increases her ability to work in the commercial medium and handily operate the ‘tools’ of the shoot. ‘I really felt when I walked away that I understood twice as much as when I started,’ she maintains, adding that it’s an understanding only borne of working for a client.

She would know. With two decades of work experience gelling inside her head – as a newspaper writer, and, more significantly for her, as a fashion, editorial and advertising photographer – Cole brings the perfectionism that has built her stills reputation to the commercial set. New to the latter she may be, but she knows how to craft an image, to light with warmth and texture that is somewhat un-Canadian, to exploit the most fitting characteristics of her subjects to suit the task at hand.

She doesn’t come right out and say any of this. Self-effacing, she’d sooner tell you she’s afraid she’ll never be able to deliver on the vision in her head, that she finds fear a great motivator, that she’s ‘never really satisfied’ or expects ‘a lot of myself.’

She must. Mainly self-taught, she built a photographic career where there was none. Bolstered by stubbornness and a belief in her work, she is moving into directing convinced that ‘you can’t just do one thing in your life.’ She avows that her photography enriches her ability to direct. ‘They play off one another. You’re always pushing the edge of the circle. One thing always influences another.’

The ultimate in art imitating life.