Here and on p. B4, Playback looks at the three top finishers in the category of editing. The spots gained favor for their overall look and the pace and flow of the images therein. We asked agency creatives to explain the concepts behind the spots and the directors and editors to discuss the process and challenges in arriving at the final cut.

*In This Report

BEHIND THE SCENES WITH TOP SPOTS WINNERS:

Direction/cinematography B3

Editing B4, B6

Art Direction B7

Animation B8

Sound B10, B11

Performance B12

THE YEAR IN SPOTS SURVEY:

Canadian commercial production houses B14

Canadian animation houses B20

* * *

The psa is traditionally a more flexible forum for a director and an editor to flex their creativity and the results are sometimes an effective case for increased creative risk taking.

The ‘Dick’s Car’ spot for Mothers Against Drunk Driving was directed by The Partners’ Film Company’s Raymond Bark and edited by Panic & Bob’s David Hicks to capture the energy and youth appeal of a quick-cut music video without the tedious aftertaste, creating a nonlinear, visually rewarding spot that incorporates a number of different looks and elements.

The spot, created by Saatchi & Saatchi art director Roberto Wilson, creative director Peter Rigby and copywriter Michael Convery, aimed to penetrate the consciousness of the younger drinking set with a message about drinking and driving without ham-fisting a preachy message into already jaded orifices.

Wilson says the spot was designed to run in the summer when revelry and cottaging and, a priori, boozing, are activities of choice. The intent, he says, was not to suggest teetotaling but to encourage responsible driving with images accessible to a young crowd.

Bark says an authoritarian message was out of the question. So, in a bit of irony, he opted to create the feel of a beer spot which turns around with a message upon conclusion (a further irony: a cut from the commercial which showed ‘Dick’s tribe’ leaping from a cliff in youthful abandon was later reprised in an actual beer spot).

The madd psa takes the audience on a tour of Dick’s World, reconstructing pertinent elements like ‘Dick’s Parents,’ ‘Dick’s Bar’ and ‘Dick’s Drinks.’ Scenes vary from black and white to monochromatic saturated with red or green, from slow motion to high speed, from moody to playful, and from driving sound to silence.

Hicks says he and Bark were given sufficient latitude to explore different tangents, which they did, creating as they went. Scenes like those showing false eyelashes falling through liquid and the cliff jumpers were extemporaneous additions which added to the feel of the spot.

The ad’s action is also interspersed with cuts to a lonely mist-swathed road, during which the music is silenced somewhat portentously, which Hicks says was used to give the feeling that something was in store.

The dynamic, says Bark, was to create action and punctuate it with suspended areas for impact, leading up to the pay-off and something of a release as the spot closes and we see Dick’s car is a cab. The audience is then urged to ‘Be a Dick’ and not drink and drive.

‘The idea was to subvert what teenagers and 20-year-olds are hearing all the time, which is don’t do this and that,’ says Bark, ‘and to have a spot which flows like a beer spot and gets the point across in a more palatable fashion.’