The newest Toyota Dealers of Ontario spot from Radke Films director Martin Shewchuk and the creative team at Gee Jeffery & Partners, headed by Gee Jeffery vp and creative director Brett Channer, has garnered a great deal of praise lately. The 60-second spot, running before the feature presentation at many Ontario cinemas, has left audiences chuckling happily, serving as the warm-up act before the film and coming attractions. Shewchuk was concerned as he shot the spot that perhaps the lay person wouldn’t ‘get it.’

‘I wasn’t sure if some of the stuff was really inside,’ Shewchuk admits. ‘I didn’t know if it was only people in the agencies and production business who would think this stuff was funny.’

The spot, which has also begun airing on television, depicts a young, rather anal director trying to get a group of Toyota dealers to jump in unison for a spot he is directing. At the same time, the director is speaking with a documentary crew making a film about the production. Channer says the strategy behind the ad was simple.

‘Our dealers are challenged with getting people to go to their environment to buy a car,’ says Channer. ‘People like buying cars but don’t like the idea of having to go to a dealership. What we wanted to do was bring the dealers down a couple of notches so the consumer would feel more comfortable approaching them. The idea was to quite literally humanize our dealers by playing them against an asshole director.’

Channer says despite the obvious room for ad-libbing in the spot (many who’ve seen it believe the dialogue is so natural it had to have been created on the spot), the script remained intact from the desk of Channer. There was little room for movement, which Channer believes led to the warmly abrasive character depicted in the ad.

‘I did write it in the sensibility of the director,’ says Channer. ‘Even though he is the feature of the spot, he is actually the antagonist and the dealers are the protagonists within the structure of the story.’

As for who the infamous director is modeled after, Channer admits, ‘He is actually a mishmash of an old partner I had – and I mean that in an endearing way – and a couple of American directors I’ve met.’

Shewchuk says the spot was shot in one 14-hour day. He credits the smoothness of the shoot to dop Simon Mestel, who was recommended to Shewchuk by the spot’s editor, Mark Hajek at Stealing Time. ‘In getting this documentary look, [Mestel] had all kinds of experience in terms of doing it,’ says Shewchuk. He says Mestel combatted the only potential problem they might have run into with the hand-held camera, quietly and by himself.

‘The problem with hand-held is the weight of the camera on the cameraman,’ says Shewchuk. ‘[Mestel] has this rig with all these bungee cords and stuff which still gave the shots a fluent look, while relieving the weight on his shoulders. This guy was great. He was running all over the place grabbing shots and made the process really easy.’

Shewchuk also gives a nod to Hajek, who he says was able to capture the comedic elements and retain the spontaneity of the ad with a slick cut-and-paste job.

Channer says when writing the spot he knew Shewchuk was the director for the job because of his talent for making convincing, dialogue-driven commercials.

‘I am convinced that Martin Shewchuk is the best dialogue director in this country and he is underutilized because this country doesn’t do dialogue,’ says Channer, who has two theories on why this is so. ‘The first is because of the French problem. It means double-shooting everything and the clients don’t normally want to spend the money. The second problem is I don’t think we have writers who are capable of it.’

‘That is unfortunate because I think [dialogue spots] are making a comeback in the u.s.,’ he says. ‘I actually believe Martin is going to be more successful in America than he will be here, and I think this Toyota Dealers spot is the launch pad for that to happen because it shows what he is capable of.’

Shewchuk, for his part, just seems happy that the audience ‘gets it.’

‘With the public being so media savvy, what with Entertainment Tonight, E! and MediaTelevision, it was almost like the time was right [for a spot like this],’ says Shewchuk. ‘To put it all together with the whole backstage, behind-the-scenes filmmaking idea, originally I didn’t know if the whole public was going to get it, but from what I’ve seen in the theatres, people are getting it and really liking it.’