Pogo Pictures Steve Colby Evokes Pride of Home Ownership for Ace Hardware
New National Campaign from MARS Advertising has Documentary Feel
ATLANTA—Pogo Pictures Steve Colby has directed a new national television advertising campaign for Ace Hardware whose message is rooted deeply in the American Dream. Conceived by Southfield, Michigan agency MARS Advertising, the spots evoke the pride of home ownership through naturalistic scenes of people fixing up their homes.
The spots are shot entirely with hand-held cameras, which gives them a loose, easy sensibility that allows viewers to feel as though they are gazing over a fence at things happening in the neighbors backyard. Yet, the spots arent straight documentary as the visuals are highly polished and vibrantly hued in a way that makes them appear just a bit larger than life.
Balancing realism with craftsmanship is a technique that Colby has honed in directing ads for such accounts as Ford, Bank of America, and the U.S. Marines Corps. We wanted the campaign to have a voyeuristic feel—to have a strong sense of reality, but to also be fun, says Colby. Viewers should feel as though they are peering through a doorway rather than watching actors.
MARS came to us with great creative and an open line of communication. This allowed us to easily translate their concepts into moving imagery, Colby added.
Colby traveled to Los Angeles to shoot the spots in order to take advantage of Southern Californias large talent pool, amenable weather and varied locations. Shooting spanned five days. We chose our locations carefully to minimize the number of times we had to move, Colby explains. We picked streets where there might be three houses we could use to shoot ten or more vignettes. That allowed us to deliver quality film, without a lot of travel time between setups.
Colbys directorial technique relies heavily on improvisation. For Ace, he used two cameras (operating one himself) to record nearly every vignette and gave his actors a lot of freedom to perform in the moment. I prefer to set up a general situation and let it play out. It can hurt a scene if the actors are always thinking, I have to do a certain thing in a certain place at a certain time. I give them room and then work around their performances, Colby notes.
While Colby likes to improvise, he nevertheless has a clear idea of where he wants to end up, and in this case that meant capturing the powerful feelings people attach to their homes. That theme comes through in every scene, says Pogo Pictures executive producer Lesley Harris. Its the feeling people have when they are working on their homes—the sense of pride and accomplishment.
I had a vision for this project and it was apparent from the first phone call and the first sit-down pre-pro meeting that Steve was the right director, said MARS Advertising associate creative director David Doolittle. He raised the level of the creative thinking and vision.
Pogo Pictures is located at 621 North Avenue NE, Suite C-150, Atlanta, Georgia 30308. For more information, call (404) 892-9490 or visit www.pogopictures.com.
Credits
Client: Ace Hardware, Oak Brook, Illinois. Brian Wiborg, Director Consumer Marketing; Anne-Marie Cronin, Consumer Marketing Brand Manager; Andrew Vitellaro, Senior Creative Specialist; Christopher Boniface, Public Relations & Promotions Manager.
Agency: Mars Advertising, Southfield, Mich. Ken Barnett, CEO; Galen Chandler, VP Director of Broadcast & Digital Media; Michael Di Stefano, EVP Executive Creative Director; David Doolittle, Associate Creative Director; Chris McKenna, Associate Creative Director; Eric MacMichael, Senior Producer; Kristin Dipple, Account Director; Lisa Groulx, Account Manager; Emily McKeogh, Account Executive; Veronica Grieve, Business Manager.
Production: Pogo Pictures, Atlanta. Steve Colby, Director/DP/Owner; Lesley Harris, Executive Producer; Jon Goldberg, Producer; Cary Gillespie, Production Manager.
Editorial/Post: Postique, Southfield, Mich. Jim Talbot, Senior Editor; Mary Connolly, Executive Producer; Patrick Duffy, Assistant Editor; Theresa Bland, Business Manager; Barbe Nilan, Project Manager.
Audio post:RMS, Oak Brook, Illinois. Randy Stephenson, Senior Audio Engineer; Julie Sexton, Studio Manager.
