Into the Library with Tom Kuntz

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I went to art school for design and slowly found myself attracted to advertising, because of the conceptual side of it. Once I got a job as a creative in advertising, I realised that directing was sort of the last stop on the production train, and the place where you got to actually make things (instead of spending months trying to get things out the door of the ad agency) and have the most autonomy in doing so.

I also found it frustrating handing ideas over to directors and having them mishandled, or executed differently than I had hoped, so in many ways, my desire to direct came out of the desire, and need, to control the way ideas got brought to life. I still love what I do and every job is a challenge and an opportunity to explore or flex a new muscle… Or simply bring something interesting into the world.

I was in a creative partnership with Mike Maguire. We were writers at MTV at the time - this is when MTV was actually the centre of the creative and cultural universe (hard to believe now, but it’s true). 

We had written a big campaign featuring lots of the era’s largest musical stars for Ben Stiller, who was hosting the MTV Music Video Awards. Due to logistics, the in-house MTV director who was assigned to the campaign couldn’t be on both coasts of the US at once, so we got to direct one of our scripts... which happened to feature Ben and Madonna. It came out funny and from there it was on…

It was a special moment because we had a real comedic voice as writers. We didn’t really know shit about directing. But we were very studious about ads at that point, so we knew enough to know what we wanted and didn’t want. After that, I started really focusing on not only preserving our comedic voice, but also becoming a filmmaker and working on creating visual worlds with every project.

I think my voice changes and I think it needs to. I know a lot of people who say to me ‘Oh, I saw a commercial on TV and I knew it was yours’, but they are almost always incorrect because they are usually seeing something that resembles something I did a few years earlier and that people are now ripping off.

Not that I consider myself some trend setter, but I try to continue to evolve what I do and surprise people with what I can do. So, often I see scripts that are relevant to something I found exciting a few years ago, not what I find exciting today.

These days, most things are horribly, sadly safe though. But since the very beginning, I have been trying to take any idea that I see something interesting in and make it my own. I like to find the kernel in an idea and nurture that. When I first started with Mike, we weren’t offered good scripts. Those were all taken by the established directors. So you have to look at something and say “How can I take what they’ve sold to their client and make something special out of it?” 

I truly don’t think anything has changed. There is this perception that once you get established, these amazing scripts just land on your lap, and occasionally that is true, but for the most part, I still feel like I’m always struggling to find great ideas and always having to work to make things special. I’m fairly certain every other director would agree.

This one was really unique for me and that’s one of the reasons I got involved in the first place. We did the entire thing in stop motion animation - which is a very unique process. Obviously, with all projects, there is an intense level of preparation, but none of it compares to when you do stop motion. Everything has to be planned out to the second beforehand. By the time you are ‘filming’, each few seconds of screen time takes about a day to execute. So there is very little opportunity for ‘Let’s try another take?’.

That said… There were a few times where I wasn’t happy with a performance that the guys spent all day executing. The face they make when you say ‘I’m so sorry but we need to do it again’ is priceless.

This one was wild because Tor Myhren [vice president marketing communications] from Apple called me and said, ‘We have this idea - we don’t have a script - and we need to shoot in two weeks’.

I was in Italy and I was like, ‘OK, I'm getting on a plane. Let’s figure it out’.

So essentially, we went right into production without really knowing the actual scenes or story line. Just glimmers of it. And obviously, some of the scenes are very large and are the kind that take intense work for production to make happen, so it was quite amazing (and somewhat miraculous) watching it all come together. 

When we finished ,we had like two days to edit and three days for post production. It really proved something that I always say, which is that TIME IS THE ENEMY. The more time everyone has to scrutinise creativity, the more it gets squashed. I love making something happen quickly - it’s almost always the best work.

There are so many stories about Old Spice - maybe because it’s the one I’ve been asked to talk about so much. But the funny thing I will say here is that me and Craig Allen and Eric Kallman of Wieden+Kennedy (creatives I had worked with on multiple prior projects) FINALLY got the shot, and because we had been rained out the day before, it was New Year’s Eve. So when we finally wrapped, we went to my house and I put on a sushi chef outfit and made sushi for everyone. 

I did all the Skittles stuff with those two that I just mentioned above (Craig and Eric). We were a dastardly threesome. They shared my passion for really trying to mess with the audience. They had done a few Skittles ads prior to me getting involved, but when I came aboard, I think what I brought to the table was the realisation that this campaign was a tragedy. These stories weren’t funny. They were sad. 

So, we shot the first round of ads through that lens and it really worked. And we realised, ‘Oh man… this is a really sweet sandbox to play in’. So in the next round, we really wrote for that. Including this one, ‘Touch’, which was not only brutally dark and sad, but also brutally hard to execute. But it came out good! Skittles sort of invented and defined an entire new genre and era of commercials, similarly to Old Spice.

This job was very tricky to get right, but also an insanely fun experience in bringing to life. I had my best friends and dream crew down in the Dominican Republic - the energy was electric. 

The trickiest thing about it was actually in the prep; figuring out how to cut the music (which was dictated by the client) to make sense and get all of the story told correctly in the time frame. These sorts of things seem obvious and easy when you watch something, but that can be the hardest part of a project, something weird like simply figuring out how the music or structure can work effectively. I spent days tweezing out over that. 

This is an ad I really like and am very proud of. That said, I don’t have a ton of ‘lore’ about it. I knew it would be good from the start and it all fell into place fairly easily due to all of my great collaborators, including IKEA, who knew way more about grime than I do! 

We really lucked out with getting D Double E because he has the perfect amount of acerbic wit that the project needed. My other main concern was weirdly the ‘casting’ of the objects -  sourcing and designing things that felt familiar, but also had the right ‘personality’ (even in their frozen state) to feel like they really were feeling the things they were saying. 

I mean. In comes a script that has Timothee Chalamet wishing Apple would hire him. What’s not to love!? But… Apple hadn’t signed him up yet, so we went through the entire process basically HOPING he would say yes (but in my heart I was thinking, ‘NO WAY IS HE GONNA SAY YES TO THIS’). When I heard he did, I was pretty amazed. I give that up to Tor and the entire Apple team. When they want something, they get it! 

The weirdly tricky thing about bringing this to life was finding the balance and tone of Timmy’s envy of Apple. So many scenes we wrote could be misconstrued as him seeming big headed or unlikable. These are the sorts of things that when you watch, are almost hard to imagine because it all seems so simple and obvious, but in the writing phase, every little potential pitfall and danger zone exposes itself, including Timmy’s own places he doesn’t wanna go. So, there is a lot of dancing and exploring to make everyone content, and also make a piece that works. My hat goes off to him for willing to poke fun at himself while he is white hot - a lot of people wouldn’t take the chance. 

This is a script that when I read it, I actually couldn’t believe it hadn’t been done. It seemed so insanely obvious. I actually spent a long time on YouTube trying to dig up a preview ad where it was done, but lo and behold - it hadn’t. 

The interesting thing was figuring out the guy’s demeanour once he is stuck. Does he love it? Hate it? Is it a hindrance? Is he indifferent? Again - it all seems obvious when you watch it, but no one was sure early on. I had formed the opinion that this was actually more of a love story than something where we should have this guy bumbling around with an annoying can on his arm. But, I had to keep convincing everyone of this as we shot. The more we shot, the more we started to see it - everyone realised the kid is the most lovable if he’s actually filled with joy and living a great life - the can actually improves it!

The other thing here was that obviously, their original script ended - I think, maybe - with him getting married.

I was like ‘OH NO, NO… He must GET OLD AND SICK AND DIE!!!’.

This one was really fun to execute. It’s hard not to have fun filming an evil bunny that is abducting people. That said, that was exactly the issue... the entire time the agency and client kept saying ‘The bunny is friendly? RIGHT?’ and IT’S NOT ABDUCTING PEOPLE, RIGHT?’.

I was like ‘Yes, yes of course. He is friendly and definitely not abducting people’...

I was lying!!!