Kuleba and Shyllit’s heavyweight spot

We’ve all heard about ad agencies trying to wrestle commercial ideas to the ground. Well, Toronto’s Kuleba and Shyllit took the metaphor literally, and came up with a body slam of an idea to promote a weed killer for Western Canadian farmers.

The spot, directed by Stripes’ Drew Jarvis, features famous World Wrestling Foundation meanie Yokozuma as the star attraction.

Yokozuma, a 500-pound (or thereabouts) sumo wrestler, does a pitched battle with a Canada thistle, and wins.

The spot opens on a dusty prairie field. We see a lone weed standing innocently in a vast expanse, where wheat fields are meant to grow.

Suddenly a shadow creeps into the picture frame, and seconds later the hulking figure of Yokozuma, better known for his recent titanic clash with wwf arch rival The Undertaker, appears before us.

Yokozuma stares the weed down, snarls his trademark bad-guy look into the screen, bows in traditional sumo custom, and proceeds to make mulch out of his herbaceous adversary.

The commercial promotes a popular herbicide called Target.

Marketing agency Adculture Group worked with Kuleba and Shyllit on the commercial.

I Spy a busy company

Since moving into its funky new Spadina Avenue office in November, commercial/music video production house Spy Films has racked up an impressive 15 shoot days, bolstered its roster and set its sights on becoming the best ‘alternative’ spot shop in town.

To that end, it is now shifting its music directors like Pete Henderson into commercial production.

Just off his second commercial shoot, Henderson’s work includes a psa for ShareLife through Vickers and Benson, and music videos for The Tragically Hip and Blue Rodeo. His style has an edgy visual appeal, an alternative approach that fits the vision Spy had for its directors when the company was launched last August, says Spy’s Carlo Trulli.

When Trulli, formerly of Revolver, and William Cranor, ex of L.T.B. Productions, set up spy as a sister company to ltb, they envisioned a company made up of directors with experience in a variety of styles.

‘We wanted people with different backgrounds related to the craft, from directing music videos, to multimedia exploration, to editing and design work,’ Trulli says.

Thus a roster consisting of director Gord McWatters, who doubles as animation supervisor, Rod Chong, who specializes in multimedia design, and George Vale, who moonlights in editing and post-production. Rounding things out are directors David McIlvaney, Cosimo Cavallero and Henderson, who won an award at the 1993 Canadian Music Video Awards for The Hip’s Locked in the Trunk of a Car.

Ideally, directors with a breadth of skills will get involved in the creative process earlier than they traditionally do, says Trulli. ‘These guys have fresh ideas and they’re very aware of what’s possible creatively. I think the agencies are just beginning to see the advantage of coming to us in the early stages of the creative process.’

Busy, busy

The talk around Toronto these days is peppered with good feelings about the amount of activity out there, including some fairly significant pools in the works. One of the bigger jobs is a campaign for Petro Canada, the first from the oil company’s new agency, Roche Macaulay and Partners. We hear the project went to the redoubtable Ian Leech.

Basic black

Speaking of redoubts, we’ve been informed that some people might have inferred from our item last issue concerning the fate of The Directors Film Company that the production house had been losing money. We are told that such is not the case and that Directors has always been in the black.

On the move

There are some additions to the Motion Picture Video staff.

The new members of the team include colorist Colin Moore and former Magnetic North supervising editor Al Knight, who’s joined Motion Picture as editor.