his `listen-first’ work ethic

There is no pigeonhole with a Philip Kates label on it, and that’s exactly how this commercial director likes it.

If there’s one word to describe the Canadian and u.s. spots on the reel he’s been building since he joined Radke Films of Toronto earlier this year, it’s eclectic. A pair of spots for the Toronto Transit Commission, for instance, couldn’t be more different. One is a soft-spoken tribute to the Good Samaritan acts of certain ttc employees, calm and quiet. The other is an in-your-face challenge to rethink why you don’t take the ttc. It’s a camera- and talent-driven piece, featuring an almost-raucous soliloquy and a funky/challenging rationale for Riding the Rocket.

That type of variability, says Kates, stems from a single-minded work ethic predicated on beginning the process of landing a storyboard with a listen-first attitude.

‘The reason I don’t have a signature style,’ he explains, ‘is because I tend to look at each script as it comes along and talk to the agency before I give them any input of my own.’ Furthermore, ‘each spot requires its own treatment.’

All of which speaks to an innate understanding of how marketers sell – carving out distinctive identities for their products through strong, top-of-mind advertising – and how agencies like to create – the proverbial break-through-the-clutter messages engendering strong consumer response.

Meantime, Kates often makes the point that, with a background in editing and music videos, the strength he brings ‘to the party’ is in filmmaking, not marketing. So he defers to the agency’s sales expertise, drinks it in before offering his own views, then executes it as smoothly as he can following detailed and extensive preproduction planning.

Once on set, he concentrates on ‘bringing their advertising message dynamically to the screen.’ This is especially true if special effects work is involved, because so much of the live shoot is influenced by the effects to be added in post. Nowadays, fewer and fewer effects are achieved in-camera and Kates says his understanding of editing makes it easy for him to ‘shoot for the edit.’

But Kates doesn’t want to leave the impression that prepro planning makes the final product dull. He sees forethought as a tool to allow him to jump into the creatives’ mind-set and then to create vibrant footage.

There, perhaps, a hint of a signature. Salting away the detail work ahead of time so that when the cameras roll there are few surprises, yet the spontaneous moments can be captured, too.

It’s working so far, although Kates confesses he’s always worried that each job might somehow be his last. But each finale seems to lead to a new curtain-raiser, with agencies from both sides of the border taking him on and more bids in the offing.

Such senior creatives as Philippe Garneau (a pair of spots for Shopper’s Drug Mart) and Stephen Creet and Michael McLaughlin (on a recent Wrigley’s shoot) have hired him on.

He’s expanded his range of product expertise with, among others, a beer shoot in Quebec, an Eggo spot through Leo Burnett Chicago, involving kids and a model set, and the edgy Shopper’s product spots.

Is all this success going to his head? Kates points to repeat business as the surest test that people like to work with him. And he’s confident he exhibits none of the bad habits listed by agency creative directors in the Aug. 1, 1994 issue of Playback: things like inability to listen, lack of enthusiasm, lack of planning, poor communication, prima donna temperament or, dare we repeat it, ‘gerbils at the wrap party.’