Classic Adverts You Didn't Know Were Made By Famous Film Directors
It was a standard career trajectory for today’s established directors: from student film to music video to TV commercial to movie. These 10 classic adverts were directed by filmmakers who would go on to make their mark in cinemas, and if you look closely, you can see the tell-tale signs of greatness in waiting…
The ad: ‘1984’ for Apple
The director: Ridley Scott
Hot off 'Alien’ and 'Blade Runner’, Scott turned his hand to home computing, helping herald the age of Apple with this George Orwell-inspired commercial. It only ever aired twice: once in local markets on New Year’s Eve in 1983, then again – to a much greater audience – during the third quarter of Superbowl XVIII. The ad features grimy, nightmarish visuals that’ll be familiar to fans of Scott’s lived-in sci-fi look.
It was so successful it was inducted into the Clio Hall of Fame and was credited with bolstering the success of the Macintosh. Scott also directed the famous Hovis bread advert with the young delivery boy on his bicycle, but Hovis aren’t so much major players in the commercial market these days.
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Watch the ad here.
The ad: 'The Secret Tournament’ for Nike
The director: Terry Gilliam
A great little by-product of the World Cup rolling around every four years is the fantastic TV ads it brings with it: with the eyes of the world glued to the gogglebox, the ad agencies – and by proxy the directors they hire – raise their game.
Terry Gilliam brought a hint of his trademark dystopia to this blackly comic series of Nike ads, featuring the world’s best footballers duking it out 3 vs 3 in a cage, on a boat, for some reason. The cherry on the top is Eric Cantona, lording it about on the cage roof with a silver cane and a sneer: “Zat’s a goal!” We’d totally pay to see this for real: it beats the Capital One Cup at any rate.
Watch the ad here.
The ad: 'Pardon Our Dust’ for Gap
The director: Spike Jonze
Legend has it the Gap execs hated the ad that Spike Jonze presented to them – they had simply been after a polite notification of the remodelling of their New York stores.
However, the clip – inspired by 'Jackass’, scored by Grieg – quickly went round the web and back again, convincing the clothes company they might have been onto something after all. Jonze, who is hardly the corporate type, took great pleasure in dismantling the Gap store pillar by pillar, even while the suits who paid for the ad never quite got it.
Watch the ad here.
The ad: 'Smarienberg’ for Smirnoff
The director: Michel Gondry
Before he played with form and function in 'Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind’ and 'The Science Of Sleep’, Michel Gondry honed his craft in commercials, the most memorable of which was this ingenious and creative ad for Smirnoff vodka.
Each time his camera pans through the glass bottle, it acts as a twisted new lens through which the action is viewed, casting the hero and heroine in their own topsy-turvy adventure movie. For more mind-blowing Michel Gondry perspective trickery, check out his music video for The Chemical Brothers’ 'Let Forever Be’.
Watch the ad here.
The ad: 'Surfer’ for Guinness
The director: Jonathan Glazer
The coolest ad ever? Arguably. The director of 'Sexy Beast’ and 'Under The Skin’ knows how to create a compelling mix of the audio and the visual: the hook of 'Surfer’ – rampaging white horses rising and crashing with the waves – combined perfectly with Leftfield’s 'Phat Planet’, a sort of dub-take on the two-note Jaws theme.
It’s one of those unspeakably brilliant ads that has almost nothing to do with the product it advertises but is so instantly iconic it doesn’t matter. Here’s to you, Ahab.
Watch the ad here.
The ad: 'The Third Place’ for Sony PlayStation
The director: David Lynch
Who best to sell the follow-up to the biggest console on the planet than the director of 'Blue Velvet’? Though David Lynch remained a baffling choice to advertise the PS2 to the masses, it worked: the PlayStation 2 remains the most successful console of all time.
That was probably more down to games like ‘Gran Turismo’ and ‘Grand Theft Auto’ than Lynch’s nightmare vision of a talking duck in a suit, though. Anyone have any idea what any of this meant? Answers on a postcard and mail them to the year 2000.
Watch the ad here.
The ad: 'Alive With Technology’ for Citroen
The director: Neill Blomkamp
Directly inspiring the creation and the success of the 'Transformers’ movies, this 2005 Citroen ad takes a breathtakingly simple concept – what if our cars could dance? - and executes it perfectly. Who knew that the man behind the moves was South African director Neill Blomkamp, who would later orchestrate robotic carnage on a much grander scale in the likes of 'District 9’, 'Elysium’ and 'Chappie’?
The car’s dance moves were provided by Justin Timberlake’s choreographer, with Trousersnake himself reportedly providing the motion-capture for the funk.
Watch the ad here.
The ad: 'One Gift, A Thousand Fantasies’ for Victoria’s Secret
The director: Michael Bay
Michael Bay could be shooting an ad for Toilet Duck and he’d still manage to shoehorn in a scene featuring a supermodel and a helicopter. Bay got his start in commercials before the bombast of 'The Rock’ and 'Bad Boys’ made him famous, and he’s kept his toe in the waters ever since. For reasons which are a complete mystery, Michael Bay has directed several commercials for underwear company Victoria’s Secret over the years, all of which feature supermodels in various states of undress.
When Megan Fox was ditched from 'Transformers 3’, Bay raided his call-list from this ad and Rosie Huntington-Whitely was swiftly drafted in as a replacement, because of her, er, acting abilities, we guess.
Watch the ad here.
The ad: 'Lucky Star’ for Mercedes
The director: Michael Mann
Because car ads can’t just consist of auto executives yelling “BUY OUR CARS, OUR CARS ARE THE BEST” over and over again, they have to get creative, and that usually means getting in bed with an action director for some glitz and glamour. This 2002 ad for Mercedes Benz was shot like a trailer for a movie that didn’t exist, starring Benicio del Toro as a man with unshakeable luck, and, like, a really awesome car.
“I got as much on this guy as I do on the Easter Bunny,” says one of the hapless FBI agents on del Toro’s tail, mimicking cries by frustrated cinemagoers wondering why the new Michael Mann wasn’t playing at their local Odeon.
Watch the ad here.
The ad: 'Mechanical Legs’ for Adidas
The director: David Fincher
Like many filmmakers of his generation, Fincher got his start in music videos and commercials – he built up a solid portfolio of ads over the years, some more memorable than others, but it was a resume good enough to get him the much-coveted gig directing 'Alien 3’, which was something of a poisoned chalice.
Still, he did fine work on the small screen, as illustrated here by this kinetic 60-second ad in which a pair of mechanical legs simulates the movement of an NBA all-star to put a fresh new pair of Adidas trainers through their paces.
Watch the ad here.
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Image credits: YouTube
