shots Awards : TVC Of The Year (Over 60 Seconds)

Following our coverage of the shots Awards 2015 in the last issue, here, in round two, we speak to several more gold winners – including editor Joe Guest, the team behind The Unquiet Film Series and folk from Blink and Psyop – about working with dogs and penguins and what gives their work that gilded glow

TV Commercial Of The Year (Over 60 Seconds): John Lewis Monty’s Christmas

Did you know, when making Monty’s Christmas, that it would be as well received as it was?

Richard Brim [ECD at adam&eveDDB] Not at all. It was our last script and having written a fair few, I think we had lost all perspective on what was good. My first inkling that it may be ok was when we showed it to our MD, Tammy Einav, who runs the John Lewis account. On any normal day you would hear the words, “This will never see the light of day,” but that day we heard “Love it, love it, love it. But then I do love penguins.” That was when I first thought we might be on to something.

The next [inkling] was when we showed it to our CCO, Ben Priest, who agreed to present it even though they had bought another script. Four hours later we were upstairs at John Lewis with the toy buyer designing penguins and the script was sold. There were a couple of times during production when both Dan [Fisher, former CD with Brim on Monty’s Christmas, now ECD at The Martin Agency] and I smiled at each other, that ‘This is going to be good’ smile.

The first one was in our first meeting with Dougal [Wilson, director], who’d more or less boarded it all out and you got to see it in some sort of shape for the first time. The next was when we went to MPC to meet Monty. He was no longer a grey blob floating awkwardly around the screen, but a moving, waddling, blinking real-life creature. We had spoken about him so much; what will he look like, how will he walk etc… and there he was.

One of our judges called it “original and charming”. Firstly, are they two of the key elements you need to incorporate into such a film, and, secondly, what other elements are important?

Well that is very kind of whoever it was, please make yourself known and I’ll send you a tenner. Contrary to popular belief I don’t think there is a formula to getting these spots right. All we try to do is think of a unique story around the notion of thoughtful gifting and to tell it in the most emotionally engaging way possible. So with that in mind, ‘original and charming’ is a very good place to end up.

It was up against some strong opposition on the shortlist. What do you think made it stand out?

I have absolutely no idea. I never do with our work that has done well.

You worked, once again, with Dougal Wilson on this spot. What is it that Dougal brings to a project, and specifically to John Lewis campaigns?

Dougal is a brilliant director and such a lovely fellow, too, so working on projects with him is a lot of fun. He has been on the journey with the agency and John Lewis from the very beginning and I think he stops the spots from taking themselves too seriously. It is his uncanny knack of seeing the fun and humanity in every situation and showing it with such ease that I think makes him the amazing director he is.

What was the most difficult element of putting Monty’s Christmas together?

It was making Monty as believable as possible and trying to get a penguin to show emotion. We decided to use an Adélie penguin because they have these amazing eyes and also they move with a funny little waddle.

To make the job as easy as possible we found clips of penguins that related to the action in the script. So, for example, when Monty picks up a piece of Lego, that exact action was copied from an Adélie picking up a rock.

In terms of getting emotion out of Monty we soon found out that it was by doing nothing too dramatic, but more the slight widening of the eyes or a wobble of the throat.

Another difficult element was keeping the plot a secret. As always the crew are NDA-ed but the public guess when they see a shoot with snow in the middle of summer.

There was one situation where we were shooting at St Paul’s late one Friday night and two well-oiled ladies walked past asking if it was the John Lewis advert. Out came their phones at the very moment the stuffed penguin, used as placeholder, was taken off set. We were very lucky because ten minutes later the photo found itself on Twitter.

It’s a question you must get asked all the time, but as each year comes around, how great is the pressure to deliver another great John Lewis Christmas spot?

The pressure is pretty tough and there is absolutely no formula as to what makes it right, which makes it even more terrifying. I think The Long Wait, with the little boy, is still the one to beat and that is what drives you as a team.