KOHLER “NEVER TOO WANTED"

AGENCY: DDB CHICAGO
Adweek: Ad of the Day
The Playlist: Never Too Wanted Playlist by Chances With Wolves
DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Commercials - Nominated
Winner Lia Awards (Cinematography finalist) (Visual Effect Silver)

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I loved this story of a Woman on the Run from the good folks at DDB. Of course these stories have been told time and again and I am a fan of the genre -- so I felt it was a great chance to tell my version and really make it my own. The key was in finding a world that also connected to the brand, elevated to a place where a high end faucet is at home, but still give it a bit of grit. So I started sketching this out with an extensive backstory that included details about a woman who was escaping from a con-artist-stock-broker husband (think a young Bernie Madoff) that she married too young. She was crossing the country to reinvent herself, to start over, and this is where our film starts.

And yes, this is just a short commercials, but building the bigger context allowed a texture to emerge. It became a way to organize our vision so that when it came time to actually shoot this, we were all on the same page. Of course, practically, there was only so much we could cover in a short shoot — with wigs, sets, car stunts, desert and cops there was time for little else. Plus we only had the resources for a 12 hours shoo.

The biggest decision in how to fit it all was do we go shoot in the desert, where the diner looks like crap, or do we shoot in the city with no desert. Fortunately the folks at Jamm said they could go shoot the desert plates later and all we needed to start was the car and hero.

So with that, we charged ahead, scheduling and planing it with the narrowest margins in order to pack it all in. And somehow, we got it, maybe even wrapping early …? And along the way, this became a blessing, as our production designer (who trained as an architect) designed the exterior of ‘Janets’, creating something better than we could have found in real life.

And this was only heightened when I brought in my favorite djs, Chances With Wolves to help us find the perfect song to bring it all together. In fact they not only found that track, they made a whole playlist to get us in the mood while we shot.