Got Milk? Stefan Morel sure does. Perhaps more accurately, Stefan Morel is Milk. His hands, in fact, are firmly pinching the commercial production udder of Milk Arts, a relatively new production company operating out of Montreal.

Morel, a director and stills photographer with a leaning toward graphic design, started Milk to fill what he sees as a need in the Montreal market for a spot shop that combines graphic and design elements with live action.

‘In Montreal, [this type of shop] is an unknown commodity, yet it is highly in demand that someone should actually be combining graphics and design,’ says Morel. ‘It is quite common in New York City and quite a bit more popular in Toronto. Because what I do is halfway between a post-production company and a production company, I’m doing post-intensive gigs but also shooting stuff, and there are not any companies in Montreal that do that.’

Morel runs Milk virtually on his own, using freelancers as needed. He describes the shop as a ‘lightweight structure,’ working mostly from cell phones and laptops.

‘It is sort of like a virtual company,’ he says.

The most recent commercial work out of Milk is a seven-spot pool of :30s for the cbc and Radio-Canada International. The campaign was created completely by Milk, going direct to the client, with Morel in the director’s chair. Each ad is different from the one preceding it on the reel, reflecting the fact that rci is broadcast in seven languages in more than 200 countries.

‘It’s not like we just did English and French versions – there is only actually one of each – but there is also Ukrainian, Mandarin, Arabic, Russian and Spanish,’ Morel explains.

Each spot also has a different cast and a different premise. The ads, shot in Montreal, are specific to the area being targeted; for example, the one produced for Russia takes place on a Russian freighter where sailors are on deck having a chat with the radio playing softly in the background. Morel says the commercials are soft sell, focussing on the culture of the countries depicted rather than the broadcaster.

‘That was the idea – to transport the viewer to the place where these spots are supposed to take place and literally dip them in the ethnic bath. The idea wasn’t to specifically try and say Radio-Canada is the best, or listen to us, or tune in to our frequency. That wasn’t the way we approached it. We tried to make it so that the radio was an integral part of everyday life in these different countries.’

The rci spots also gave Milk a chance to show its graphic prowess.

‘The spots are all shot in 35mm, but they have head and tail bumpers with graphics,’ says Morel. ‘There is a nice transition of graphics leading us into the live action and then the graphics again at the end.’

To get the look just right, Morel took a great deal of care in production and casting. He reports the casting process was lengthy but necessary in order to make the characters in the spots plausible. And because there was no dubbing, they had to have a good grasp of the language they would be speaking.

dop Stefan Ivanoff, who recently took up residence in Montreal after moving from Bulgaria, handled camera duties on the campaign.

‘The idea was to make it as realistic and authentic as possible, which is why [the ads] have sort of got a cinema verite style, although it is very cinematic,’ says Morel.

The writer was Morel’s longtime collaborator Charles Anderson.

The entire production took approximately two-and-a-half months to put together, says Morel.

With such a large production successfully completed, Morel says he may be ready to bring on a small roster of director/graphic designers to join him at Milk. He says he is looking at a number of prospects in both Montreal and Toronto, but would not say who the frontrunners are. *