Getting Set for Ad Production Is No Easy Task

It probably looked like a pretty simple commercial.

But that’s the way Honda likes things. Simple. It was set to the tune of “Pop Goes the Weasel.” In the ad, filmed several years ago, a Honda CRX-SI came popping out of what appeared to be a giant toy jack-in-the-box.

What television viewers never heard--or saw--was what really went on in the staging of this commercial.

The ad was filmed, at great expense, on a dry lake bed in the Mojave Desert. The car was placed in a giant box atop an elaborate stage built eight feet off the desert floor. But just before the commercial was scheduled to be filmed, the rains came. When it rains in the Mojave Desert, it can look more like the Mojave Ocean. And the entire set, which cost tens of thousands of dollars to build, was ruined.

“In this business,” said Alan Roderick-Jones, the Hollywood production designer at Wave Productions who created the set for Honda, “you learn to accept these kinds of things.”

This is the business of production design. It includes everything from the selection of locations to the creation of numerous sets for TV commercials. Set design becomes particularly critical in car commercials, considering that nearly $44 billion worth of passenger cars were sold in the U.S. last year. Just one kink in the set design--or even a poorly lit car--can result in millions of dollars of lost sales.

And this is the time of year when new cars are coming out, and production designers find themselves working on car commercials by the parking-lot-full.

Several weeks ago, for example, Roderick-Jones was designing commercial sets for three Japanese car makers--Hyundai, Suzuki and Nissan--at the same time. In fact, at the Hollywood Center Studio, he was recently overseeing the construction of sets for two Nissan ads on the same morning.

To be precise, over a five-day period he had to design sets for 10 different Nissan ads. Sure, Nissan’s Los Angeles advertising agency, Chiat/Day, sent him rough sketches of the sets that it wanted for the ads. But his job is to make certain that each set makes a lot of people happy--from the person directing the commercial to the top executives at Nissan.

“Everything must be approved by the client,” said Roderick-Jones. And that means everything. For example, in the background of one Nissan ad are several newspaper stands. The color of the blue paint used on these stands had to be approved by Nissan. And, for that matter, even the texture of an apparently innocuous background wall had to get Nissan’s nod.

The ad agency has plenty of say, too. One agency official decided that he wanted trees with autumn-colored leaves in the background of a Nissan ad. But since the commercial was being shot indoors, Roderick-Jones had to send several people out scurrying to a so-called prop house to find a couple of fake trees.

Many car makers hire workers who constantly polish--and repolish--the cars on the set.

“Some of this might sound silly,” said Terry Foutz, Nissan’s national advertising manager. “But you never want some obscure thing in the background diverting the attention from the focus of the commercial--the vehicle.

The problem, however, is that there are only a handful of Hollywood production designers who excel at this, Foutz said. “And right about this time of the year these people become a very precious commodity.”

One such designer is Roger Collins, who figures that he has designed sets for 100 car ads--give or take a Chevy or two. “After a while, it’s all kind of like a mirage,” said Collins. “When people ask me what car commercial I just finished filming, half the time I don’t even know.”

Some auto ads, however, are hard to forget. A few years ago, Collins designed the set for the Chrysler commercial that featured Lee A. Iacocca sitting with a couple of hillbillies on the front porch of a rickety, wooden gas station. In the commercial, several Chryslers whiz by so fast, that the gas station--and even the gas pumps--appear to bend in the breeze created by the cars.

“No one could figure out how to design that set,” said Collins. “But it seemed like a simple idea to me.” He built the front of the gas station on garage door springs. That way, it was simple to bend. What’s more, the door to the station--as well as the gas tanks--were made of easy-to-bend rubber.

Even Ricardo Montalban, the actor and Chrysler spokesman, says that he has had to learn to play second fiddle to both the set--and the car.

And that was a tough lesson 15 years ago when the actor, who was then starring in the TV show “Fantasy Island,” filmed his first Chrysler ad. “At first I felt like a real star,” recalled Montalban, in an interview. “They even gave me my own motor home to wait in.”

But once they called him onto the set, the real waiting began. Every time they were about to film the ad, the director stopped the action to have someone polish the car or change the lighting on it. Indeed, while Montalban stood fuming, there were nearly a dozen delays over a 30-minute period. When they were finally ready to film, an assistant said, “What about Ricardo?”

“The director gave me one quick look-over,” Montalban recalled, “and said, ‘oh, he’s fine, let’s shoot.’ ”

Campbell-Mithun-Esty Lands Latino Business

In the still-growing Latino advertising market in Los Angeles, $1-million accounts don’t come along that often.

Now, a $3-million piece of national Latino advertising business has been snared by one of the newest ad shops in the Southland: Campbell-Mithun-Esty.

The Orange County office of the Minneapolis ad firm has just been assigned all the Latino advertising for Chrysler’s Jeep/Eagle division. And the ad firm hopes that even more Latino advertising may soon be on the way. “There’s a lot of Latino business out there,” said Jim Brady, general manager of the office, “and we’re going to pursue it.”

Big Pizza Account Puts Agency in the. . .Money

Talk about an ad agency rolling in dough.

Over the past six months, the Los Angeles office of the ad firm D’Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles picked up more than $130 million in new ad business, including Paramount Pictures, NBC and Denny’s. But last week, it picked up even more dough--literally--with the addition one of the West Coast’s largest frozen dough makers, Oregon Farms.

The Eugene, Ore., food company’s $7-million ad business also includes assignments for several brands of frozen Italian food. “We just seem to keep getting more business,” said James D. Helin, managing director of the ad firm’s Los Angeles office. “We’re rolling in it.”

‘Ex-Wife’ Ad Gets Two-Day Run

What’s the difference between a radio commercial being yanked--and one that runs its normal course?

Well, the folks at Robinson’s say one of their recent radio spots ran its “normal course” in just two days. The ad in question featured a monologue by Polly Draper, co-star of the TV show “thirtysomething.”

In the ad, Draper talks about shopping at Robinson’s to buy a special outfit because she’s about to meet her husband’s ex-wife for the first time. No matter how she looks, Draper says in the ad, the best revenge is knowing “he’s going home with you.”

The ad is part of the department store chain’s so-called first person ad campaign. And it sparked plenty of phone calls--both pro and con--after it began airing last week, said Leslie Husa, a Robinson’s spokeswoman.

But Husa said the ad was not yanked as a result of any complaints. Rather, she said, it was scheduled as a two-day spot to promote the opening of the chain’s new Northridge store. Said Husa: “The campaign is our attempt to cut through ad clutter.”