AGENCY: TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris
PRODUCTION COMPANY: Egg Films
DIRECTOR: Kim Geldenhuys
CLIENT: BMW
EDITOR: Kobus Loots
Land Speed Record, directed by Egg's Kim Geldenhuys for BMW, was Gunn's 21st most awarded spot for 2001.
Long before Honda "Cog", another on-set engineering miracle was unfolding in Cape Town, South Africa, where a supersonically fast racecar was being designed and built from scratch. The project, for BMW, marked the first big commercial break for up-and-coming director Kim Geldenhuys.
Five years on, amid a string of successes both locally and in the US, South Africa's golden boy of commercials still ranks "Land Speed Record" as the top spot on his reel. "It was a hell of a project; it came with a lot of blood, sweat and tears," concedes the 39-year-old Cape Town native. "Just building the damn thing was an absolute nightmare."
The "damn thing" in question was a custom vehicle developed and assembled - engine, chassis, the works - by Geldenhuys and the creative team at TBWA Hunt Lascaris, in conjunction with an industrial design firm. The contraption looked and sounded like a jet plane without wheels, and traveled almost as fast. "When it rolled out of the truck they [the client] couldn't believe we'd built the real thing," Geldenhuys says, chuckling at the memory.
Authenticity marks the work of this self-taught stills photographer-turned-director, who never takes the easy route. In Arnold's recent Volkswagen spot, "Leaf", Geldenhuys insisted on having a puppeteer construct a real-looking leaf even though a lot of its antics had to be created in 3D. "We wanted to try to alleviate [the SFX team's] work as much as possible," he says.
And if he has to learn on the job, so much the better. It's been that way all along. Geldenhuys never went to college, opting instead to absorb the film business from a hands-on vantage point. Seeking a mentor whose work he admired, in his mid-20s he attached himself to producer/director Ian Gabriel, co-owner of Giant Films, who didn't like ADs but would tolerate an assistant. "I was a runner, assistant, whatever. I basically did whatever he needed... He made me fall in love with the business."
Love wasn't enough to blind Geldenhuys to his own perceived deficiencies. He believed his visual skills needed improvement. "I knew I was lacking an eye, and a discipline about light and how to frame." To train his roving eye, he taught himself the art of stills photography and wound up spending the next five years as a professional fashion photographer.
He might have languished in the world of collagen pouts and shiny hair had his wife, a stylist, not taken matters into her own hands. She bought him a Bolex for his 30th birthday, told him to ditch the stills and get into directing. "She got tired of me saying I was going to do it all the time," he says, chuckling. Not wanting to work for other producers, he co-founded his own production company, Egg Films. After his first partner quit he hooked up with Colin Howard, who'd been producing Keith Rose at rival Velocity Afrika. In 2001, after a couple of false starts in the States, Egg forged a reciprocal repping agreement with old friend T.K. Knowles at Bob Industries, LA. The response in the States, Knowles says, "has been awesome". Geldenhuys is "getting work from all the right agencies" - namely, Goodby, TWBA, Arnold, Fallon and Element 79 of Chicago.
Rob Jaeger, exec producer at Element 79, says he was struck by the "unique look" of Geldenhuys' film - "an amazing combination of color and texture." In fact, the agency was so impressed with the footage Geldenhuys shot for a recent Gatorade spot, "Get Up", they took him up on his suggestion of editor - Korbus Loots from South Africa. "Kim had a great deal of input on the outcome," says Jaeger.
Nevertheless, casting was touch and go for a while. Finding a cyclist who was willing to crash wasn't easy since Geldenhuys, once again, didn't want to fake it. They finally found a stunt team in Madrid, constructed a false asphalt floor, and, as Geldenhuys tells it, "the very first take the guy went down at about 35K an hour. I remember looking and thinking , 'Oh shit, this guy's not going to get up again'."
It's easy to tell he loves his work. Observes Jaeger: "Kim is happiest when he is behind the camera and rolling film."
Perhaps he's simply happiest when tackling something new. He's currently finishing a Metro FM piece that's - wait for it - largely animated. "It's something I've never done before," Geldenhuys confesses. "Every single shot is set in the 3D realm."
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16 июн 2010
