American Cinematographer - October 1995 - 26

Fred

Ginger are back. Kind of.
Industrial Light & Magic

and

Astaire

But it

has transformed the dance

legends
swingin' scissors and co¬
quettish comb which come to life
for a magical spin atop the counters
of your local Supercuts hair salon.
The exuberant spot, entitled
"Stylin'," is the work of ace ILM
into

a

commercial director Steve Beck.
Beck's high-concept/low-verbiage

approach is exemplified by his
dreamlike 3M "Imagination" and
intense Ford "Launch"

cials. But while those

with

was

us

the whole

was

Astaire's solo

work, especially his magical dance
with

a coat rack in 1951's
Royal
Wedding, that provided the most
useful model of all. "His ability to

transform

a

coat rack into

a

Beck and ILM

this wonderful

choreography."
completing the cho¬
reography, Beck finished his
storyboards and the spot was
ready to roll. The director had an
exact replica of a Supercuts salon
built on ILM's main stage so his

danc¬

After

ing partner helped us see how we
could bring out the subtleties in a
scissors and

a

comb," Beck says.

"He made it look

so

but I un¬
spend days

easy,

derstand that he would

commer¬

were

ap¬

proached by the J. Walter Thomp¬
son
Agency, who sold Supercuts
on the
spot's concept by showing
the company's reps a pastiche of
Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers clips
cut to the song which ultimately
provided the musical ambiance.
"They sold the concept on the song,"

the

Cutting Up
with

"Stylin'," a computer-generated
homage to Fred Astaire and Ginger
Rogers.
by Ron Magid
crew

^ ley-style shots. "We

could
Supercuts
store," Beck insists. "The CG object
| technocrats rigged an additional
camera in the grid over the stage to
capture a top view of where the
t, lighting elements were in each
£ shot, which helped them cast accu¬
rate shadows when they added the
have done that at

to

~

breathe
life
into their "little
visual parlor

*n

the

director calls it.
"We had to

hand

one

scissors and comb."

keep

Working with his long¬

wav¬

time

ing while the
other hand lifted

something off

the table."
The first order of business
was

studying Astaire and Rogers'

and days practicing
those subtleties."
Beck

can

until he got

relate. Translat¬

ing Astaire's distinctive style to

a

CG scissors and comb

Astaire's

work, because

tried. And tried. "When we're do¬

find

routine in

we

didn't

particular that
just 'lift' and paste into
the choreography. We tried to ana¬
lyze how he'd move: his grace was
always present and we could al¬
ways get a sense of his dramatic
pausing, the way he'd land and
strike a certain pose. He knew
one

could

how to capture

the moment from

beat to beat. The

American

ghost of Fred

Cinematographer

harder than
on

collaborator, cinematogra¬

pher Andy Dintenfass, Beck and
sailed through the basic
plate photography in a grueling
one-day shoot. "One long day!"

company

videotape. "It was a plea¬
sure
looking through their old
films," Beck states. "The spot was
based on quite a bit of Fred

work via

we

never

a

~

trick of illusion

as

unimpeded from

every angle, including directly
2 overhead for those Busby Berke-

Beck and his

magic,"

could film

&

part. From then
on, it was up to
team

Rug

ILM adds commercials to its dance card

Beck marvels.
That was
the only easy

24

all, we were able to translate this
strange, awkward social event into

spots relied

heavily on editorial and minia¬
tures, "Stylin'" put the director
through his paces in the new realm
of computer-generated characters,
set to a Forties jazz beat.

ILM

hockey stick in the upstairs' win¬
dow of the CG department and
wonder what the hell was going on
up there! But I think through it

time."

was even

imitating the master

the dance floor. Once Beck

sembled his ILM effects team,

as¬

they

Beck gasps.
We

were

"We did eleven setups.
really hauling through it.

There

was a bit of collaboration
that had to happen, so the anima¬
tors and everybody pitched in. The

a commercial, we can only
storyboard so much," he explains.
"So we had a bunch of guys trying
to come up with a dance routine,

CG guys

none of them
really wanted to
get up and dance with the others.

scissors around the

ing

and

We

finally brought in a six-foot
hockey stick they could dance
around the room. People would
see these
guys dancing with this

October 1995

did quite a bit of measur¬
ing of distance to camera as Andy
and I discussed various

while

we

moved

a

standard

angles
pair of

countertop.

Andy's an extraordinary talent. He
can hone in on the
image really
quickly and get it blocked in and
looked at, which helped us push
things along quite a bit."
American Cinematographer - October 1995

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