Into the Library with Andy McLeod
'The Creative Library' is LBB’s exciting new launch. It’s been months - years, probably - in the making and we reckon our re-tooled archive will change the way you work, whether you’re a company looking to store and share your work, or a marketer or creative looking for new partners or inspiration for your latest project.
The latest stage of this launch involves you, our readers. If you have ever been credited on campaigns or music videos, you can now personalise your creative profile - find out more about why and how here.
To coincide with launching The Creative Library, we launched regular feature called 'Into the Library' where we catch up with the industry’s most influential directors and creatives to talk about their career highlights, past and present. Think of it as a reel showcase with a big dollop of personality. We interview directors and top creatives about their favourite commercials and music videos from their catalogues to find out how these works shaped them.
Today we’re excited to welcome Andy McLeod, a director with a deep reel that’s a joy to get stuck into. Before joining Rattling Stick as a director, Andy was executive creative director and founding partner of Fallon, one of London’s most highly respected advertising agencies. He hates Marmite and is credited (along with his creative partner who loved it) with starting the ‘Love It/Hate It’ campaign while they were at DDB in the late ‘90s, creating a turn of phrase that is now in the English dictionary. As a director, he’s built a career on relatable moments of truth with humour and dry wit, with brilliant casting at the centre of his work.
LBB’s Alex Reeves was delighted to hear about 10 projects that mean the most to Andy.
Thinkbox - Dog’s Home
I hope you like dogs.
A lot of these ads seem to have dogs in them. My problem is that if a brilliantly simple idea comes my way, I really want to be involved. Even if it involves yet another dog. It’s not that I love things with dogs in, it’s just that I love things with great ideas, and if they happen to have dogs in, there’s not much I can do about it.
So the first ad in this list is for Thinkbox, whose task it was to encourage advertisers to spend money on television advertising.
I started off worrying that the dog might not be able to do some of the things we asked of it. By the end we were writing more and more scenarios because he seemed to be capable of anything.
This is one of the first ads I’d done that taught me the power of doing as much as you can in camera, relying on VFX when you really need it, rather than leaning too heavily on 'nah, we’ll do it in post'.
VW - Toy Story, E.T., Halloween
Three spots for the price of one if I may. Again a simple idea that I couldn’t say no to. Completely reliant on a great casting director of course, and the fact that by then we’d started shooting pretty much everything digitally, so you can keep the camera rolling for the perfect take. In the stuntman-on-fire spot, it is my voice at the end saying, 'You alright Del?', with genuine concern, because the fire was real, as was the smell of Derek’s ears being cooked as we got to the limit of his fire-proofness.
Wall’s - Garage & Kitchen
Another ad, another dog. This one was selling Wall’s sausage rolls by sitting in a blue velvet ring box and singing a song. Why? It doesn’t matter. Which is what this idea taught me, because I’m a bit more boringly logical than that, but it turns out that sometimes it doesn’t matter why; funny wins.
Mattessons - Hank Marvin
“125 red Fender Stratocasters please.” Not something you ask for every day.
Literally one of the best scripts I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading. A lovely play on rhyming slang, with dozens of school kids making their way home, absolutely ‘Hank Marvin’ starving hungry.
Goodyear - Oldies
Perhaps hearing that I was always keen on doing as much in-camera as possible, the lovely lady in this Goodyear tyres spot nervously approached me before we turned over to say she was comfortable to drive, but was worried about reversing all that way. Luckily, in this case, I was happy to reassure her that 'nah, we’ll do it in post'.
Cesar - Journey
Christ, another dog ad. This one, weirdly, is actually for dog food.
It was voted the most emotional ad ever in the world, ever, or something like that, by someone or other.
And to be honest I was in tears myself most of the time, not because of the emotion, but because the old fella playing opposite the dog was a nightmare. Didn’t speak English, or Croatian, where we were shooting, so could only really take visual cues, which would’ve been fine, except that the creative team preferred his look without glasses.
Ed Sheeran - Beautiful People
Another example of keep it simple, stupid. Take a singular simple idea then explode it out into myriad situations. This is the only music video I’ve written and directed, and I loved every minute.
Paddy Power - Team Talk
I just loved the bloke in this. The creatives and I had to fight quite hard for his on-pitch melt down at the end, but it was worth it.
Mulberry - Win Christmas
Again, just a lovely, simple idea, played out to the Nth degree. Simplify then exaggerate, this script came pretty much fully formed, a great example.
Boomin - South Pole
'How are we going to do that?' We’ll just do it.
A great script that just demanded to be done well. All the departments pulling it out of the bag at the same time. A lesson in arch collaboration, and everyone doing their thing, fighting for the same outcome; a strong, silly idea, with everything on the screen.
