Bryan Buckley: Commercials chaos and conviction

Dubbed the ‘King of the Super Bowl’ by The New York Times for the nearly 70 Big Game ads he has helmed, filmmaker Bryan Buckley is also known for his politically driven campaigns and protest pieces such as ResistDance, recently performed in Washington DC.

He’s directed feature films The Bronze (2015) and Pirates of Somalia (2017), had two short films, Asad (2013) and Saria (2019), nominated for Oscars and co-founded the lauded production company, hungryman, with Hank Perlman. He has won every major ad industry award, including a Black Pencil, for his viral anti-gun violence campaign The Lost Class for Change the Ref.

Both activism and advertising feature in your family background, were you always destined to follow this career path?    

‘Destined’ is a dangerous word in my opinion because it leads to expectations. And as you plow through life you realise ‘expectations’ dissuade you from living in the moment.  Advertising definitely made sense given my exposure to it with my parents [Buckley’s father was in advertising and his mother was in PR and advertising].

The activism was born out of the feeling that an injustice was occurring before my eyes and I had an itch that meant I couldn’t turn the other way. So, shit; wait – maybe this was all destined…

As a rookie director you shot about 180 hockey spots with ESPN, saying “that was my film school”. Do you feel practical work tops academic in terms of an education?    

Talking about shooting in an academic sense is a bit of con. That’s not to say there aren’t some basic rules and a lofty trove of films that you can study to help elevate skill level. But the second you get that script, it’s a new universe you are creating. And how much you elevate that universe beyond the page rests largely in your hands.  

And the second you step onto set, whether you’re Scorsese or some summer intern, chaos breaks loose. How you navigate that chaos and channel it is really the difference between the legends and the wannabes.   

Commercials arguably are the most disciplined type of filmmaking. You’ve got time working against you. An army of people sitting in video village all with expectations, ideas and fears. Oh, and there is chaos. Lots of chaos. Such a great place to experiment and sharpen your work. 

You founded a successful agency [Buckley/DeCerchio, with Tom DeCerchio] in your early 20s but then felt miserable. What was it that wasn’t bringing you joy?     

Success is a funny thing in the ad biz. Success means you win more business. And when you win that business, you’re one day closer to losing it. So every day was a battle against losing business. Usually for things way beyond our control – dud products, hostile takeovers, new CEOs cleaning house. Meanwhile, meetings overtook doing the work. Family vacations cancelled. Endless all-nighters on new biz pitches that had already been won long ago on some golf course. All I wanted to do was create. 

As King of the Super Bowl how have you seen Big Game advertising evolve?   

The Super Bowl continues to rule the year. But without question celebs and influencers have taken over the day. Yes, there is always an outlier spot that somehow breaks the trend. But it just seems [to happen] less and less. 

You took acting and improv classes to hone your directing; what did those experiences bring to your game?   

Ahh my gritty NYC acting class days. It really forced me to see the world through the eyes of an actor. It’s humbling, humiliating and, sometimes, freeing as all hell not to be yourself.  

Improv really requires understanding of character and motivation. When you understand who you are and your motivation, then the results are ridiculously funny.  

You have talked about the value of instinct over overthinking; what is it about making quick decisions that can enhance creativity?  

Well, if you allow your instincts to take over and not go with rational, safe, plodding decision making, then you will actually have a shot at something ‘wow’. The other option is just doing something ‘meh’.  

Most of the time the quick decisions are a brain flash that last a millisecond and evaporate – one part of the brain says, “Shit man, that could be funny if I ask Tina to do a weird random snort...” The rational side of your brain kicks in and says, “Oh, but that might be dumb and Tina will just stare at me and make a mental note to tell her agent she doesn’t want me back for the next round of spots. Everyone in video village will hear my unfunny snort request getting iced out by Tina.  

“The iced-out-snort-story will be overheard by a vindictive cost consultant during a LinkedIn workshop. Everyone will agree that the weird snort was never mentioned in my 100-page overthought treatment and I will never. work. again.”  So, you pause and say to yourself: “Be rational bro. Don’t ask Tina to do the weird snort.” And you stay employed… Or do youuuuu?   

Because the truth is, you’re not being paid all this money to do ‘meh’. 

You have said that it took you many years to find your ‘voice’ as a director; can you describe that voice and how it has evolved?   

There is this core voice I think all true filmmakers have. It’s a collective creative vision of all the decisions they make. It’s unapologetically who that filmmaker is while still serving the core idea. When I first started writing and shooting, I was just happy to be getting paid to shoot. If something worked, I would seldom drift from it. I broke in with handheld doc style, keeping everything reality based. I liked discovering non-actors on the street because I dug how random their performances were.  

I shunned post effects because they weren’t real. Then I began to work with more ‘A’ list talent and I realised, with their skillset, you could reach a deeper emotional level. And effects, if done well and with detail, could elevate the world you were creating. I realised that reality and championing the underdog remained in my voice, but I didn’t have to fear a slicker, larger cinematic world to tell stories.   

You are known for both comedic and purpose-driven work. While humour and purpose are not mutually exclusive, now that we’re in such acutely dark times, is light-hearted content less appropriate, or at least less urgent than activism?  

It’s really hard to wear blinders right now and pretend that everything is gonna be just fine and this ugly undoing of democracy around the world is just a phase. My phone blows up every few hours telling me otherwise. Does comedy have a place in all this? Yes. Like when the cops came storming out of the Kennedy Center to shut down a bunch of Broadway dancers [while he was filming ResistDance], we had to laugh at the dark absurdity of it all.  

Your prolific and varied career ranges from agency founder to Oscar-nominated filmmaker. What has given you the most fulfilment? 

I finished 190th out of 200 kids in my high school class. And somehow, miraculously I have the hottest, funniest wife on the planet, five incredible children, and I still can change a diaper in the dark. And it ain’t mine. 

Talking about ResistDance you said you’d learnt how powerful the language of movement can be in a world taken over by “talking heads and ranting trolls”. Can you expand on this and share news of your current musical project?   

It’s no secret we are being besieged by talking heads and ranting trolls. I personally stepped away from social media over a year ago to avoid some of the venom. I took the gained time to embark deeper into an insane journey of creating Fyre Fest the Musical [a satire about the failed 2017 music festival founded by conman Billy McFarland]. I felt a musical would be the best way to tell the story. Sorta meta. And potentially funny as hell.  

When Billy came out of prison, I interviewed him, told him we wanted to do a musical on Fyre – he laughed and handed over his life rights. I then reached out to Taika [Waititi – co-producer] and he jumped in, along with his wife, Rita Ora.  

Can you catch us up on the how ResistDance has resonated with advocacy groups in the US? 

Within hours of our postings, advocacy groups started reaching out to us with a message of unity – The Secret Handshake, Madonna, Women’s March and the family of Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre. They asked us to come back to Washington DC to perform it at a vigil commemorating one year since her death.  

What do you think the ad industry is getting right – or wrong?   

A couple of years ago I chaired the D&AD craft category. I’d left award show judging, and I was kinda expecting the worst. You know, the “you vote for me and I vote for you”, blah politics; mediocrity being awarded for all the wrong reasons. And none of that happened. I mean none. It was just a lovely group of judges trying hard to recognise work that elevated what we do. It gave me hope, because if we don’t care about elevating the work, then the ugly fate that is currently staring the ad business in the face will destroy it.