The Leo Burnett Ad Agency was to produce a commercial for the 1973 Olds 98. One of the new features on the car was a new-fangled Air Filter that filtered out unpleasant odors...a first in the industry, I guess.
The setting was a family traveling in their Olds 98 throughout beautiful northern Michigan . The commercial was more or less through the eyes of the two children in the backseat ... two perfect offspring of two perfect parental units.
While marveling at the beauty that is Michigan, the dramatic demonstration was to be that the filter un-stunk the stinks that happen along life's highways. The drama was to reach a crescendo with the discovery of 3 skunks on the side of the road.
Well, at least there were supposed to be 3.
Unfortunately, a local bear decided that his evening meal that night would be one of our star stinkers. He peeled back the chicken wire that made up the skunk cages and chowed down on one of our salt and pepper beauties. It was a minor tragedy, because we still had 2 “striped smellers” for the roadside scene next day. We had hired a zoo employee from Detroit to attend to the skunks’ every need. Burial of the dearly departed was not necessary as the visiting Grizzly had left nothing behind of our number 3 Mephitis mephitis.
This resulted in a very minor setback as we still had two of his polecat brothers left for stink duty. All our zoo keeper had to do was to tie a piece of mono-filament line (guitar string) to each of the B and W mammalia. A simple tie-down and cue the 98 pass by. Simple, right? Not so fast!
Who knew skunks don’t get along? Not just don’t get along, skunks hate other skunks! When staked next to one another and released, a fight of monumental proportions broke out, turning two black and white smellers into black, white and red little stinkers. Cue the zookeeper, his asbestos gloves and his syringes of skunk anesthetic.
Time to rethink the pass by scene. How about we wait until the skunks just start to come out of the deep sleep, and still haven't seen each other? "O.K., everyone into positions. Zoo keep, let us know when the skunks start to wake up." Zoo keep ... "They're coming around". Director ... "Roll camera. Cue the car. And, 'Action!' Kids, point out the window at the skunks. Mom, look at the skunks with calm amusement ... no one needs to pinch their nose. And, 'Cut!'."
At this point, the skunks, once again, became aware that there was another skunk in "their space" and the bloodbath commenced once again.
Take 2.
It may be of interest to the reader that, the bear and the skunk-capades were just two of the memorable issues on the commercial shoot. Segue to the Mackinac Bridge closing scene.
In this magnificent piece of cinematography, the director hired a helicopter and anchored the cameraman in a harness, hanging him out the door of the helio. The scene called for the car to travel once in each direction over the bridge. The copter would fly to the East on the first pass. The pilot was to fly sideways with the cameraman out the back door, facing the bridge. The car would travel North over the bridge. The helicopter was to hover, approximately 1/2 mile West of the bridge until the Olds 98 covered the first quarter of the bridge. At that point, the helio would start its sideways move toward the bridge. As the car reached the middle of the bridge, the copter was to raise up over the span and execute a turn that put the cameraman facing Westward. Take one and "Cut ... now, let's bring the copter back to Position One and as soon as the car reached the Northend of the bridge, let's have our happy family in their Olds 98 head back South over the bridge. Oh, look, there's one of those classic Great Lakes Ore Boats. Let's see if we can include that in the shot.".
So, the pilot gets into position, the car starts its Southbound trip over the bridge and the director yells, "Action!". With the camera rolling, the sun setting in the West and the car approaching the quarter-point ... the helo pilot saw an opportunity to add his own value-added piece to the commercial. As he approached the bridge, and the car reached the halfway point, he made the one man decision to fly under the bridge instead of over it. If you think skunks hate one another, you've never seen how livid an uninformed cameraman can get when he finds himself between the bottom of a bridge and the tip of an ore boat! Beautiful shot. Perfectly beautiful end of the commercial. But, the start of another brawl.
We delivered a beautiful commercial to the Oldsmobile clients - digested skunk; his wounded comrades and one peeved cameraman aside.
No comments:
Post a Comment