The Directors: The Cronenweths
The Cronenweth Brothers have been co-directing and shooting their whole lives. It is in their blood - they both grew up on Hollywood stages going to work with their father Jordan, an acclaimed Hollywood Cinematographer. In addition to directing hundreds of awarding winning TV commercials, Tim has also worked as a writer and producer on several features, commercials and TV projects. And Jeff is one of Hollywood’s most sought out Cinematographer - a two time Oscar Nominated Cinematographer and David Fincher’s trusted DP for over 20 years.
LBB> What elements of a script sets one apart from the other and what sort of scripts get you excited to shoot them?
Jeff> Well, it all starts with the story for us. You have to begin with the creative, which is the story in advertisement. It depends on how it resonates. Does it have humour in it? Does it have humanity in it? Is it irreverent? Is it relatable? Is it flat and funny? Is it dark and brooding? Is there any kind of double meanings or anything that we can parlay into something nuanced to get a reaction out of an audience while selling a product? Does that story allow us an artistic kind of contribution visually? Anything new and out of the box - those are the kind of stories that are appealing to us.
LBB> How do you approach creating a treatment for a spot?
Tim> Well it starts with the boards and the creative call. But I believe there’s always a deeper meaning within the creative assets we get as directors. As those assets reveal themselves, I like to key in to how we’re all built as humans to receive certain messages. It’s how our brains are built, so whether someone realises it or not, they’re using those tools put in place by evolution or a creator, whatever you choose to believe. Keeping that in mind, my approach to film comes from the findings of social anthropologist Joseph Campbell. There are fixed elements within us as humans that hardwire how we receive certain messages, like story, and if you can tap into that, that’s where the magic is. In digging deep to find the rooted meaning even in the most superficial advertisement and humanising it, you raise the bar within that milieu, and that turns us both on as directors. I find that in leadership, listening to the people you’re leading and getting them to see beyond their vision helps them grow. To me, that’s the most satisfactory thing that you can get out of any interaction with another human being. When you grow together, you bond, and now you go to war together to make things happen, you can accomplish things, create something out of nothing, and that’s a really beautiful thing. It’s this other non-tangible variable that I think is most applicable to our process.
LBB> If the script is for a brand that you're not familiar with/ don’t have a big affinity with or a market you're new to, how important is it for you to do research and understand that strategic and contextual side of the ad? If it’s important to you, how do you do it?
Jeff> One of the things that my brother does remarkably is he researches these companies and even researches the agency to find out why this advertisement came about and what it’s trying to serve; who they are, where these ideas came from, what’s behind it. That way, we can figure out how to promote that brand within the creativity and still get something that is not only innovative in advertising but is also a memorable, out-of-the-box story that people will want to see again.
LBB> For you, what is the most important working relationship for a director to have with another person in making an ad? And why?
Jeff> There are two answers to that question. There’s one from the developmental creative side, and there’s one when you’re in the process of actually making that commercial. On the creative side, it’s important to honour the original idea from the creatives, protect that idea, carry it all the way through, and bring it to life. I look at it like a team sport. Then from a production standpoint, I’m biased, but I think the director and cinematographer relationship is very important. Once you get started, this is the best relationship on set to bring all the visual elements together and combine the original idea from development with the performances and the dialogue.
Tim> I look at directors and cinematography as a single unit. But, in commercials, I put the emphasis on the relationship with the creative director - wherever the buck stops. Sometimes it’s the person who’s the originator of the idea, and other times it’s the person who’s making all the decisions. Going back to what Jeff said about it being a team sport, you’re being invited to someone else’s party when you make a commercial. You have to figure out who’s hosting it and create a relationship with them. If you can get them to be invested, they’ll take ownership, and they’ll go into any fight alongside you to protect an idea.
LBB> What type of work are you most passionate about - is there a particular genre or subject matter or style you are most drawn to?
Jeff> Anything with a good story where there’s humanity involved. I like seeing a character arc within the first thirty or sixty seconds where we can watch something change. I’m partial to visuals, of course, so if there’s anything that has an opportunity to put something visually on screen that supports a narrative, that’s what usually drives me after the initial idea is presented.
LBB> What misconception about you or your work do you most often encounter and why is it wrong?
Tim> After Jeff finished Fight Club, the establishment pushed back on it, and Jeff was accused of being 'the perpetrator of darkness' - he was labelled that by The Hollywood Reporter and Variety. It’s a badge of honour for him now, but at the time, it was like, 'Are you kidding me?' So for us, there are deeper opportunities than being compartmentalised into genres. That goes back to reaching across the line and touching the humanity of the story. Unfortunately, with everyone in the industry, you often get typecast into whatever your last hit was, and that’s how you get the same thing over and over again. But, if you see a breakout ad and it stands out, it’s almost always because somebody took the time to figure out the soul of that particular idea, and that’s way more important than being genre specific, to me.
LBB> What’s the craziest problem you’ve come across in the course of a production – and how did you solve it?
Jeff> The Social Network takes place at Harvard University, and they didn't let us shoot there. For the opening title sequence, David Fincher wanted Jesse Eisenberg to run past many of the campus' symbolism and iconic exteriors after he fought with his girlfriend. So, we found one building that wasn't owned by Harvard in the area that shows the famous archways. The streetlights in Cambridge helped us light the other exteriors, and we had fixes for the other shots, but it was night, and the archways were dark. In order to light them properly, you'd have to be on campus, otherwise, the archways would disappear. We came up with the idea to build a battery cart with two lights, and we hired a mime to pull the battery cart onto campus. We'd turn it on, have Jesse run by, then turn it off again and wheel it back into the street. We did that six or seven times. The idea was that in the event that the mime got caught, it would take a few minutes for them to get an answer from him because he's a mime. So a $60 million movie had to return to old film school tricks to get the shot.
LBB> How do you strike the balance between being open/collaborative with the agency and brand client while also protecting the idea?
Jeff> It’s an arm wrestling kind of adventure. You have to put yourself in their shoes and find out what it is that’s causing them to make the choices that they’re making after the original pitch. Then, you have to find some kind of bounce that you can use as the foundation to bust people out of their normality and take risks. I learned a great thing from David Fincher, and it’s that there are limits to risk, and if you stop taking them, you find yourself in this place of mediocrity. But, if you take risks and make a mistake - and you will every once in a while - it’s just a little bit of money, and you go on. If you don’t ever make any mistakes and you’re not pushing boundaries or pushing your art form, what are you doing?
LBB> What are your thoughts on opening up the production world to a more diverse pool of talent? Are you open to mentoring and apprenticeships on set?
Tim> I try to have as diverse a crew as the talent pool allows me. I think the production side of the industry has been slow to open enough doors to allow people to find the experience that diverse talent needs to compete on the level they need to be at. The hard thing about it is it’s not as simple as just saying 'come,' because there's a technical talent that you need years to acquire, and people need that time. I don’t think it serves anybody if people aren’t comfortable about performing a certain position, so I think we need to be patient while talent gets the time to arrive at a place where they represent that craft as well as it can be represented. But, change is happening, and it's getting better every year, and it’s happening faster than anything has ever happened in our industry in the past. So, there’s hope and promise but it’s kind of like a seesaw.
LBB> How do you feel the pandemic is going to influence the way you work into the longer term? Have you picked up new habits that you feel will stick around for a long time?
Jeff> I hope not. I did a film called Being the Ricardos in the middle of it. We had a set full of faces that are completely covered except for eyes. We had talent up there giving these performances from the heart, and when you say cut, usually they look to see the reactions of the other cast and crew members looking for some kind of affirmation, and all you have is blank eyes staring at you, and it leaves them kind of naked up there. I don’t know if we’ll ever go back to pre-Zoom collaboration because being remote can cut days off of a shoot if you don’t need to be there in person for pre-production, but I try to be at every colour correction or anything else that I’m allowed to be at in person.
LBB> Your work is now presented in so many different formats - to what extent do you keep each in mind while you're working (and, equally, to what degree is it possible to do so)?
Tim> It’s always going to be a challenge and a compromise because you cannot serve all of those formats equally or optimally. It’s incredibly frustrating, but it would be short-sighted for people to think that we can have a standard format and make it fit all these different things that have contradictory geometry. It’s just not possible.
Jeff> I think technology is keeping us in the game more than it’s not. Ten or so years ago, there was a series of BMW films, and recently they started a new series EP’ed by Joe Kazinsky. Because of an iconic new 32x9 monitor in the back seat of the i7, Joe wanted to frame the film in that aspect ratio. At first, it was preposterous, but the more we shot it, the more we fell in love with it. It was amazing to set up compositions that wide and have people talking on two ends of the screen. When 16x9 and now all the internet formats started coming into play, the ask was to literally shoot three different formats, which means three different compositions, which means you’re doing three different spots. Now, I think the industry has come to realise it makes more sense economically and time-wise to utilise larger resolution sensors and pull all the elements from fewer compositions.
LBB> What’s your relationship with new technology and, if at all, how do you incorporate future-facing tech into your work?
Jeff> I think that all of these new tools are amazing things to add to the toolbox which helps us tell better stories in a more productive way and broadens the worlds that we’re allowed to tell the stories in – it's all an advantage. The only problem I see in my experiences thus far is people trying to cram too much into one technology without totally comprehending the benefits of it and the drawbacks of certain things. So often, something comes out - like The Volume - which is an incredible, great tool for certain things but not for everything. But, if you use these new tools properly, they’re all fantastic, and you’re a fool not to embrace them.
LBB> Which pieces of work do you feel really show off what you do best – and why?
Tim> For me, I love our GMC 'Ideas' campaign. Simple and elegant but profound in nature. The ideas that don’t make it into their trucks are discarded. This manifests in a pile of rejected idea parts of vehicles in a beautiful field with giant hills on the horizon. We shot it all real and in-camera launching huge pieces of vehicles, engine blocks, drive trains, tires, and up to a full vehicle with a pneumatic cannon so they created a descending parabolic arc. As if the engineer had discarded ideas into a trash bin. It was fantastic, creative, and wonderful fun to execute.
I also loved the inclusionary aspect of 'Be the Batman' for 'Warner Brothers, Arkham Knight video game. Shot in the pure style of Nolan’s Batman franchise, we discover a teenage Batman being confronted by a group of corrupted thugs on the streets of Gotham. Each new scene introduced a new character situation where societal collapse is occurring around normal people who must rise to the occasion to find their will, spirit, and ethical imperative to fight moral decay. Unifying the nature of humans in life-or-death situations and rising above superficial differences to find their commonality has profound and powerful implications. This piece is very interesting to me.
Jeff> One spot that comes to mind is Budweiser's 'Liquid Chicken.' It’s a light comedy spot of four friends grabbing food after a late night out. The characters we cast, the simplicity of the location, and the coverage we used to cover the dialog came together to create a beautiful bonding, relatable day in the life moment and elicited charming, nuanced performances from the cast.
Another that I remember fondly is Gatorade with Usain Bolt taking us on an iconic walk through the streets of London, not giving away whose resounding words we are listening to until he settles into the starting blocks for a race. The challenge was to uniquely compose compelling shots of London, keeping Usain a mystery and avoiding the obvious cliches.
