Take One (Jul 15, 1979)

travel to a person known as the creative director. His office is smaller than the Grand Canyon, but not by much. “Hey, guys, you know how many 37-Bs cross my desk in one day?” But before the art director can reach his analyst by phone, a smile crosses the creative director's face. “I can save this one. We'll make the Studebaker a Porsche.We'll make the German Shepherd a woman!” A twinkle in his eye, he whispers: “We'll give her a straw hat with fruit on it. Like Carmen Miranda!” Grimly, the copywriter and art director see that these changes are carried out. The account executive is then called in. He (sometimes she) is a person who frets, constantly. He frets because the account might go to another agency at any time and there is nothing he can do about it. This is because he’s never figured out what he’s supposed to do in the first place. Since the account executive's function is never exactly defined, he feels compelled to rent the car and drive the copywriter and art director to show the storyboard to the client. A client is a person who sits in an office all day and waits for the copywriter and art director to drive over and show him ideas for a commercial. If he gets bored, he works on a clever marketing plan for his company’s product. When he finishes this plan, he shows it to the marketing manager. The marketing manager waits until he is alone. He then roars with laughter and throws away the marketing plan. The client is the only person in the world who does not know a 37-B when he sees one. And he sees over a hundred thousand 37-Bs in a year’s time. The client looks at the storyboard and immediately says: “Hey, that’s really something else.” He often uses language like “I’m hip to what you're saying” and “That's really something else” because he knows advertising people live in coldwater flats in Greenwich Village and like that kind of talk. After he says the storyboard is “something else,” he proceeds to make the storyboard something else. He does this by changing all the words and all the pictures. The bowl of fruit on the woman's head is now a Pekinese with sinus problems. The commercial is now set in Munich, 1937. When the account executive gets home, he has seven martinis. He sees a naked man hiding in his closet and thinks it’s a coat. The art director goes home and takes lessons so he can play one of the three baby grand pianos he has received in the past week. The copywriter finishes chapter twelve in his novel, where the screenwriter takes over Twentieth Century-Fox. The sketch guy redraws the storyboard one more time. By this time, he has earned enough money to put down a deposit on the Taj Mahal, which he has always wanted. The storyboard is then given to the 32 TAKE ONE Sea “We'll make the Studebaker a Porsche, and the German Shepherd a woman!” agency producer. He looks at it and calls the production house representative. He tells the production house representative a little bit about the commercial and asks him how much it would cost to shoot. The agency producer also reminds the production house representative that Christmas is only six months away. And his chalet in the Adirondacks could really use a redwood hot tub. The director of the production house is a lot like a director of a motion picture. He started in live television and he thinks he is God. The director decides that there is a small island off the coast of Tahiti that would be perfect. With a few correctly placed props, it would look just like Munich in 1937. To save expenses, only essential personnel attend the shooting of the commercial. This means the copywriter, art director, creative supervisor, associate creative director, creative director, agency producer, twelve clients, a cast of twenty and crew of fifty. The sketch guy is not invited to the shoot. He is in a hardware store in New Delhi, looking at storm windows for the Taj Mahal. To insure that the production goes smoothly and quickly, only a limited number of people are allowed to look through the viewfinder of the camera. This means the copywriter, art director, creative supervisor, associate creative director, creative director, agency producer, and twelve clients. The director of the commercial never looks through the viewfinder of the camera. He knows that Hitchcock never did, and it impresses the hell out of everybody. The storyboard often calls for what is called a dolly shot. This is when the camera moves from one place to another, following the action of the scene. A dolly grip is a crew member who is responsible for pushing the camera during a dolly shot. Rather than mention all those who insist on riding the camera for a dolly shot, suffice it to say that the dolly grip wears a truss. At all times. Dailies are the pictures that were shot on a particular day. They are shown to check the footage. Dailies are never shown until everybody is back in New York. This way, if the footage is terrible, nothing can be done about it. After taking a vacation from being in Tahiti, everybody returns to New York and goes to a person called an editor. The editor assembles and arranges the shots in a cohesive order. To accomplish this, he uses what is called a moviola. This is a clever machine that keeps the sound and film in synchronization. While the editor works, fifty agency people and fifty clients all gather around him in a room roughly the size of a closet. They all look at the moviola screen, which is roughly the size of a cigarette case. Across town, a person known as a musical arranger is thinking of a way that will musically make Tahiti look like the Munich of 1937. It is a difficult, trying process. So he steals. Usually from Cole Porter, but sometimes from Gershwin or Beethoven. At long last, the edited picture is mixed together with music and dialogue. 37-B must then be tested. This is an intricate, fascinating ritual, performed by the agency's research director. This is a college graduate who predicted that Dewey would beat Truman by a landslide. The research director gathers together a group of people, usually housewives, in a living room equipped with microphones and two-way mirrors. While the clients and agency people watch, unseen, the housewives are shown the commercial. “Not another 37-B!” housewife. “All you see on television these days are quiz shows and 37-Bs,” says another, with great vehemence. She is not too upset, though. By sitting in this living room for two hours, she has earned fifty dollars. The copywriter and art director are told to come up with a new approach. The art director sells one of his baby grand pianos so he can pay for a better analyst. The copywriter buys a copy of Los Angeles Magazine, and wonders what Hollywood is really like. And, at the end of each year, a group of 37-Bs are nominated for an award calleda Clio. This year, a 37-B I had written was nominated, but didn’t win. The show was interesting, however. One of the speakers read his speech twice and couldn't figure out what everybody was laughing about. The president of the awards committee won an award. The prime ribs they served were tough and stringy and several tables sent out for pizza. I wondered to myself if I was being morally “empty” for working in advertising. Bah! I told myself. You've gotta eat! Then I noticed a young copywriter taking notes on a cocktail napkin. I was encouraged. Maybe he would finish that screenplay after all. exclaims one Jon Fase is an advertising copywriter and sometime screenwriter.