Laughing all the way to the kitchen sink

Talent, talent direction and impeccable pacing are the key elements to success in a tight, ticklish new 30 from Chaos International for client 3M and agency Vickers and Benson.

Who’da thunk a spot for Never Rust and Never Scratch wool soap pads could be so amusing. But ’tis true! The funny factor hinges on the performances of actor Lindsay Leese in the English version and Michele Sirois in the French. Leese in particular is so droll, so offbeat in the housecleaning milieu, it’s a very entertaining piece of film to watch. And you will have the opportunity to see this national number, beginning May 9.

As she explains that with the Never Rust variety of soap pad, you can clean three times as many lasagne pans, she pulls one loooonnngggg such pan full of kilos of the stuff from a magic oven; as she later describes all the chicken wings you can cook (and clean up after), she says, ‘Good for you… bad for the chickens,’ and shows one well-worn lookin’ wing to the camera.

Then she moves to define the unbeatable advantages of the Never Scratch variety of soap pad. Yes, you can avoid scratching your non-stick cookware and fine china but, darn it all, it won’t even scratch that #$%^&*@! cookie jar from your Aunt Sarah. This last bit is punctuated by Leese hoisting said ceramic eyesore and heaving it out of frame.

Cut to a beauty shot of the soap pad packs, pause just so long, and then smash! the cookie jar hits the counter and becomes a million pieces. Quickly back to Leese who is clearly anguished over what she’s done. Smiling evilly, she says, ‘Oops!’ and it’s a wrap.

Terrific talent direction by director Ali Selim, out of Minneapolis, Minn. and repped in Canada by Chaos, and understated camera work – including neat zooms and unusual low camera angles – by James Gardner.

Pacing was nicely established by editor Alex Eaton of Third Floor Editing. Strong, daring creative (especially for this category) from the v&b team of writer Dave Calvert and art director Margrie Wallace. Agency producer for the English version was Tessa Waisglass and Louise Blouin for the French. Fran Rutherford produced for Chaos, with Kate Eisner as sales rep and Harve Sherman as exec producer. Keen Music’s Thomas Neuspiel created a fun music/audio track and Image Group handled on-line. ST

A spot with snap,

crackle and… Pop

bear Spots has pulled off some nifty moves for those mischievous Rice Krispies mascots Snap, Crackle and Pop in a new 30 for agency Leo Burnett and client Kellogg’s. It’s a ‘chase caper’ commercial informed by the Who Framed Roger Rabbit standard for combining animation and live action, and it achieves some neat feats.

The spot begins with a little boy at the breakfast table, looking to find the mascot trio in their usual places on the Rice Krispies box. But Pop is nowhere in sight. It turns out the boy’s sister, in her room down the hall, has nabbed Pop, dressed him in female doll-wear and is ham-fisting him while trying to comb his cartoon hair. She’s live action and he’s obviously not, so the visual combo is striking. The whole spot juxtaposes live action and animation in a whirlwind way, especially once Pop squirms loose from the preschool grip and races off down the hall toward the kitchen where his mates await.

Down the corridor go the cartoon Pop, the live-action girl and a puff of smoke trailing Pop. When the girl runs into her brother, Pop – by now holding on to a speeding toy car – zips between brother’s legs and the ‘smoke’ seems to go beneath both sister and brother. In the blink of an eye, Pop has careened into a chair leg and, flung up on impact, cannonballed into the cereal box on the kitchen table. There he hits hard and plunks onto the table between his two mates. ‘Girl trouble?’ they ask and the three are reunited on the cereal box.

The tricky nature of combining live action and animation (to say nothing of also working with child actors) is illustrated time and again in this spot, which comes off so smoothly viewers begin to take the technique and technical achievement for granted. One brief moment shows a crack, however; when the little girl releases the wriggling Pop, he heads off a little to the side of the direction in which she seems to be looking. But the effect of this lasts only for a second thanks to deft editing by Bob Kennedy at Flashcut.

Bear Spots’ animation director, Joseph Sherman, says the most challenging scene is the one where Pop is flying through the air over the table en route to his crash into the cereal box. ‘As Pop flies in the air, not only is he doing a somersault, but he’s moving quickly towards Snap and Crackle standing on the table. We had to track the animation along with the live action, which is pretty tricky,’ he says.

All of which encouraged Sherman to collaborate closely in planning the shoot with live-action director Phil Kates of LTB Productions and Leo Burnett art director George Longley. Sherman says once the live action was shot by David Makin, Bear Spots animator Dave Feiss had little trouble posing the animated characters. Writer for Burnett was Kate Felstiner and Nancy Enderby produced for the agency. Peter Hudecki produced for Bear Spots and William Cranor produced for ltb. Spin Productions handled the on-line. ST