While the commercials of the ’90s have a reality-based, this-is-you-and-your-house kind of feel, the commercials of the ’80s were something other. Taking lifestyle advertising to a higher plane, they elevated glamor to outlandish heights. Think Calvin Klein. The spots may have been far out, but they were visually beautiful.

Sasha Lyn handled the task of creating just such a sleek, black-and-white, ultra-glam veneer for Venue Magazine.

Shot in a rock quarry for that ‘moon-like’ quality, the spot features all of the essential qualities – a surreal setting, beautiful actors in beyond-runway fashions, and high-drama opera.

‘The Venue people really wanted to portray a futuristic, cutting-edge feeling,’ says Lyn. ‘It was actually Mitch Gabourie (the director) who came up with the kinky Star Trek kind of idea for the wardrobe. The rock quarry was about trying to find contrast, and the visually graphic wardrobe gave the bleak setting a kick.’

Venue worked without an agency on the spot, an experience Lyn calls ‘pleasurable.’

‘It changes the experience a lot. Essentially, the agencies are the creative source when you’re dealing through an agency rather than a client. The role of the art director in that case is to actually realize the project visually. With the Venue spot, because of its nature, I had more of a conceptual role in the creative.’

Lyn says art directors have felt the budget and time crunch as much as any other area of production. ‘You have to produce very, very quickly,’ she says. ‘The time frame is very short. On average, you get perhaps a week to a week and a half to prep for a two-day shoot.’ MEA