Kessler Irish addition takes

a refreshing point of view

It’s no accident that the great filmmakers of Europe, rather than the legendary commercial directors of North America, find expression in the flowing pace, subtle camera angles, and storytelling sensibilities on Robert Logevall’s reel.

Recent signing

Logevall, a 35-year-old commercial director currently living in New York, was represented in Canada (where he lived until two years ago) by The Directors Film Company until late last month when he signed on with Toronto’s Kessler Irish Films.

He formed his impressions of life and art as he grew to the age of 19 in Sweden, exposed to cinema but much less so to television and its commercial entourage. As a student of film, he says he was influenced by ‘the early Italians – Fellini and others – and the European cinema’ stalwarts, including various Russian directors. Transplanted to Canada in the early ’80s, he was swept into a blizzard of small-screen programming and advertising compared to the ‘one or two channels’ available when he was a kid.

Back in Stockholm, he says, ‘it was a big thing’ – read, an occasion to ditch school – ‘to get four episodes of u.s. tv shows.’ Europeans do develop ‘an awareness of North American culture,’ he adds, but people don’t grow up talking about tv shows with their friends the way they do over here. Not too surprising, then, that Logevall didn’t plan for a life calling shots on a commercial set. He claims it just kind of happened.

One step at a time

After studying interior and product design at college in Vancouver, someone got him a job in the art department on a made-for-tv-movie. ‘It was something I didn’t think very much about at that time, but I just stuck with it’ and took the career one step at a time.

Five years ago, he moved from film to commercial sets as a production house art director of the freelance variety, doing a lot of work for director Bruce Dowad. Two-and-a-half years later, he decided to try directing and put together a spec reel. Kessler Irish exec producer Kate Hunter says to this day, certain agency creative directors recall the promise of that reel. But Logevall says it was just some ‘stuff’ he pieced together. His current reel sports a half dozen stylish, striking, image-driven spots.

Coffee Mate spot

Perhaps the one given the most airplay lately is for Coffee Mate out of MacLaren:Lintas. As a voice-over tells a story, we see the light-and-shadow figure of a woman, in a flowing, crepe-type dress, gracefully descending the stairs in what looks to be a walkup apartment building. The voice describes being surprised that she stormed out of the room just because he told her the low-fat Coffee Mate would be good for someone like her. The gliding form, the flowing robe and mottled, intentionally grainy look speak of cinema influences while the script is sheer advert.

The same is true of the camera’s take on a companion Coffee Mate spot in which a beautiful woman is foiled in her effort to wheedle a jar of the stuff away from a besotted man, only to have him tell her to go find her own jar. A movie take – with its pacing, treatment of subject, longer lenses and offbeat angles – on a direct-hit tv-type ad.

A spot for Gentle Touch contact lenses displays Logevall’s knack for the funny/ironic. Two people are out for dinner on a first date. The man is talking, but the camera stays mainly on the woman. As he talks – about his favorite subject, himself – we’re hearing a foreground, almost simultaneous, voice from inside her head. She’s getting increasingly ticked with this guy – although outwardly you can’t tell – and we gather from her internal monologue that listening to him yakking is as bothersome to her mood as wearing a pair of dirty contacts can be to her eyes. So you get rid of them (the lenses), she thinks, just before they (he) get irritating. Cut to product shot, quick explanation of benefits of these lenses, and it’s over.

Her expressions are exquisite: she looks to be bearing up well, almost enjoying herself, then gives an absent smile, curt nod to a passerby, more smiling as she plots her escape. Very fine indeed. Almost too visually oriented to describe in words.

Filmic prose

Overall, Logevall produces flowing filmic prose, with very few jolts or sudden stops. The images are often soft focus, grainy, almost liquid. He builds genre pieces well and is even convincing on multi-plot pieces. Oh yes, and he’d like to avoid the ‘cheap babe’ stereotype in ads, saying he tries to portray women as intelligent as men.

Logevall says he’s keen to find ‘quality projects,’ those whose storyboards have ‘something hidden underneath,’ and those written by creative teams who are ‘into collaborating.’