The Director Isn’t Just Monkeying Around

Joe Pytka is among the advertising world’s commercial auteurs. A perfectionist with no patience for sloppiness, Pytka can be an intimidating presence on the set. His temper tantrums are legend, but he gets results--one reason advertisers pay $15,000 a day for his services.

He has directed 25,000 commercials over a 30-year career, working for such big-name marketers as Pepsi, Nike and Anheuser-Busch. He shared an Emmy with New York advertising agency BBDO for the “Chimps” commercial for HBO. The spot, shot on scientist Jane Goodall’s wildlife preserve in Africa, was the first commercial ever to win an Emmy. In it, chimps filmed in the wild appear to mouth lines from popular films, thanks to digital animation.

Born in Pittsburgh, Pytka, 59, planned to be a painter. He started making commercials in the late 1960s after filming documentaries for the public television station in Pittsburgh, WQED. Next, he moved to New York and finally to Venice, where his production company is now based.

Among Pytka’s memorable spots is a 1985 commercial for Pepsi called “Archeology,” a spot in which archeologists from the future can’t identify a soft-drink bottle they unearth on a dig. (It’s a Coca-Cola bottle.) It won a Grand Prix at the Cannes international advertising festival that year--one of the highest awards in advertising. The “Hare Jordan” commercial for Nike, featuring Bugs Bunny and basketball star Michael Jordan, inspired the 1996 box-office success “Space Jam,” which Pytka directed.

Pytka’s company, simply named Pytka, takes in between $30 million and $35 million annually. . Times staff writer Denise Gellene talked with Pytka earlier at a commercial shoot at Oakwood Memorial Park in Chatsworth, where he was directing an ad for HBO. What follows is an edited transcript.

Q: . What were the challenges in directing “Chimps?”

A: It was a tough one. I didn’t believe at first that we were going to pull it off. We considered using trained chimps, but when we talked with Jane Goodall, we realized we could not do that. When chimps are in captivity, they totally change character. They are not the same animal. We realized we had to go to Gombe [Goodall’s African game preserve] and film. But without trained chimps, there is no way of predicting the action in this commercial.

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Q: How did the commercial evolve?

A: When we went to Gombe, we hit the ground running. We hung out for four or five days shooting as many chimps as we could. Some days we got lucky and some days we didn’t. On our first day we saw a chimp, the dominant male, and we knew he was Marlon Brando. [In the commercial, the chimp recites some of Brando’s lines from “The Godfather.”] But we didn’t know how we were going to use the footage until the end. We also went to Hawaii to shoot some lush landscapes to blend into the spot. There was a beautiful tree in Hawaii and we used it. [In the commercial, the digital chimps appear to sit in it.] It was actually cheaper to go to Hawaii and shoot than build a set. The entire process of creating the commercial took five months.

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Q: The commercial has been criticized as misleading because Goodall doesn’t really get HBO and it’s not her voice we hear in the commercial. What is your reaction?

A: We didn’t use Jane Goodall’s voice because we didn’t want to bother her. The spot is hyperbole. Chimps don’t watch television. Come on, if you accept that, then why worry about the other stuff? It’s a joke. It is about trying to create a charismatic image for HBO.

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Q: What’s your take on the state of TV ads?

A: Right now, pretty poor actually. Most of them are pretty awful. They are too effects-driven and too digital-driven and there is not enough humanity. Everything is too gimmicky.

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Q: Why is that the case?

A: Because it is easy. It is very difficult to write something with any kind of humanity or emotion. It is very easy to go into the digital bay. Digital effects are not being used properly. They are being used for pure effect--explosions and creatures and things. I did the John Wayne ads for Coors [where old footage of Wayne is inserted into new commercials], and I would say that might be a little vulgar in terms of using the technology. Digital technology should be used to do something you can’t economically do--like create weather or do a particular crowd scene.

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Q: The advertising industry is debating the effectiveness of celebrities in commercials.

A: I’ve had huge luck with them, from Michael J. Fox with Pepsi to Michael Jordan--that commercial became a huge movie. I don’t think there is any argument that if used properly they do huge things for you.

Sometimes they are used in a bad way. I think athletes are probably overused right now. There are very few athletes that have the charisma of Michael Jordan or Bo Jackson. A lot of them try, and everybody seems to have a deal. I think the final irony is--you know I do the “Little Penny” stuff with the puppet--they came up with the idea of a puppet as an alter-ego of a celebrity just to give him more charisma. [They are a series of Nike ads with Orlando Magic basketball star Anfernee “Penny” Hardaway.] I find that incredibly ironic.

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Q: Another debate within the industry has to do with showing the product in a commercial. It broke out after Nissan dealers complained last year that the company’s ads, which viewers liked, didn’t show enough of the car.

A: I think the perfect commercial will show no product. That is why I avoid car commercials, because you have to show the car. There are only maybe two cars ever made that are worth looking at. If the car is not a Ferrari or a Bentley, it is probably wise not to show that car. About 10 years ago, I did some Michelob commercials and the advertising director for Michelob at the time wanted the commercial to have so much attitude that we would never have to show the beer. I mean, why show beer? Beer is beer. Unfortunately, other people got involved and wanted to see the product, and the campaign fell apart.

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Q: You’ve directed feature films and commercials. Any difference?

A: There is a huge difference. It may sound strange, but films are more corporate and less creative. The films I’ve made are huge compromises--you have to satisfy so many chiefs. The films are script dominated; you are not allowed as much spontaneity in film. The dialogue is not how people talk. It’s all sound bites for the movie trailers. With commercials, the script is the starting point. Take the commercial we’re working on now [for HBO]--we’ve changed the script three times already. I also can’t understand why films are so expensive. An 80-minute film costs $80 million. That’s $1 million a minute. The average commercial doesn’t cost nearly that much.

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Q: How much improvisation do you do?

A: We are doing a campaign for IBM called “Blue Borders.” The ads are just starting to air. We went to France recently to shoot three commercials and we ended up doing 30. The writers are good friends of mine, and they’d see a situation and we’d write a commercial on the spot. On one occasion, we were in a pottery factory, and it had an interesting room. There were a couple people in there, and they had an angst-driven discussion about making business better. It was totally spontaneous and a nice commercial. In France a few years ago we did a spot for Pepsi. We walked into a deli and there was this old guy eating a sandwich. So we did an improvisation about deli food. It took 10 minutes to shoot and it was an incredibly funny commercial.

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Q: What advice do you have for people breaking into commercial production?

A: That is a tough one. The only advice I would give is keep trying. I could never recommend to anyone the path I took because it was so indirect. I was a primitive animator, an optical printer, an assistant camera man--I did everything. Now there are film schools.--they didn’t really come into the fore until the 1970s The other thing I would say is be true to your own vision. Don’t copy anyone else. Find your own way of expressing yourself.