Editor Mark Hajek knew he was on board a special project with ‘Real Dealers Can’t Jump,’ but the spot’s success exceeded even his expectations. The Toyota Dealers of Ontario commercial, directed by Martin Shewchuk of Radke Films for Gee Jeffery & Partners under creative director Brett Channer, won a Gold Lion at this summer’s Cannes International Advertising Festival, Canada’s first since 1981.

Hajek’s work on the spot also got top marks in this year’s Top Spots editing category. No stranger to the victor’s podium, Hajek won a 1995 Gemini Award for Elvis – Airborne, a one-hour documentary about skater Elvis Stojko. Likewise, The Dane, an eight-minute Hamlet spoof he cut, won the 1999 Gemini for best short film.

The editor, who works out of Toronto’s Stealing Time Editing, says he takes on these kinds of projects more to exercise his chops than for the money.

‘That’s how I try to refresh my perspective,’ he explains. ‘I try to bring some of the stuff I get out of that and apply it to the commercial end. Hopefully it can keep me a little bit more versatile.’

Hajek’s doc experience came in handy on ‘Real Dealers,’ the style of which he describes as ‘concocumentary.’ The spot features an interview with fictitious Rolo Tarry (played by Adam Reid), an insecure, egotistical young commercial director in the process of making a Toyota ad. It cross-cuts to scenes of the man at work which counter the cliches he spouts, groaners such as ‘It’s not about me, it’s about the film.’

There are two versions of the spot – a 30-second for tv and a 90-second for movie theatres. Hajek says the piece was conceived primarily for the theatrical experience.

‘We thought it would play really well in cinemas due to the whole [wide-screen], filmic aspect of it,’ he comments. ‘When we came in to cut, I looked at the script once and then just went crazy and came up with a bunch of stuff that obviously we couldn’t squeeze into the :30.’

Hajek credits Gee Jeffery’s Trevor Schoenfeld for his witty script, but adds that as an editor he was allowed more leeway than usual.

‘It was a very free-style approach,’ he says. ‘Forming the structure the way it came out was really nice and loose. Everybody gave me as long a leash as I needed to either hang myself or have fun with it.’

Hajek, who cuts on Avid Media Composer, illustrates how things can be altered and improved upon in the editing room, in particular with the segment where Tarry instructs a group of red-jacketed Toyota dealers to jump on cue for the ‘wow’ finish. Before the camera rolls, a silver-haired dealer innocently raises his hand and says, ‘Excuse me, I have a question.’

‘Initially it was scripted and shot so the ad would come up from the folds and put his arm around the guy and escort him off the set,’ Hajek recollects.

Time limitations made the sequence problematic, so Hajek devised a way of making it both shorter and funnier. After the dealer announces he has a question, the spot cuts to Tarry asking ‘Anybody else?’ and then back to the group of dealers, the silver-haired fellow conspicuously absent. It’s the kind of gag that can only be achieved through the magic of film editing.

‘I pretty well made that cut from right out of the gate,’ Hajek recalls. ‘It lived through just about every rough-cut/time-cut stage we had, because everybody reacted in a common way on that one. It was pretty much the big belly-laugh.’

Hajek understands the notion of respecting the vision of commercial clients, but he’s certainly happy Toyota went out on a limb with the unconventional ad, allowing the filmmakers more room to experiment.

‘There are a lot of ‘slice-and-dice, plug-it-in’ kind of spots I have to deal with as an editor,’ he says. ‘It’s everyone’s prerogative to see it the way it was conceived and [story]boarded, but it’s great to have a client who sees the big picture and says ‘Go for it, funnier is better – it doesn’t matter if it wasn’t on paper before we all started.’ ‘ *

-www.stealingtime.com