Into the Library with Vesa Manninen

This was the first job I did with HOBBY Film and I have very warm memories of it. The idea is obviously to capture a camp B-movie feel. Over the years I’ve watched a ton of old monster movies. I knew I wanted to get that low budget, hokey mood just right – the performances, the cinematography and, of course, the monster.

I designed the monster myself. I remember the night before the shoot in Romania I got a call from the production designer saying “We’ve got a problem with the monster.” We’d used the wrong kind of paint and it was basically melting. But it actually made it look even more cool. When we did the shot where it breaks out of the house, the monster got stuck halfway. We could only shoot that once, so we had to improvise. We changed camera angles and a couple of crew gave it a good hard kick to get the shot.

I’m proud we did it all for real, just like you would back in the day. I once heard someone say “Too bad they used archive material!” That was the greatest compliment I’ve ever had, because we shot every frame of it.

We shot this near LA and movie fans will recognise the iconic Vasquez Rocks from so many classic films like ‘Planet of The Apes’, ‘Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home’, ‘The Ten Commandments’. The location makes you feel like you’re shooting a big Hollywood movie, it’s so steeped in cinematic history.

The kid was amazing, a real professional. That’s a long monologue he has to deliver – it’s a lot of words for a commercial. So we worked closely together to get it right. He nailed it. 

I love character design jobs. The creatures in the video game are pretty simple, just a handful of pixels. So it was really fun to re-imagine them as these big, detailed CGI beasts. I recall my agent in Hollywood saying that studio heads had seen it and there was talk it might inspire a movie. That didn’t happen, unfortunately. Maybe they say that to everybody…

What I love about this film is how it’s a world away from generic car commercials. It has this sinister, Hitchcockian quality that you don’t often see in adverts. It’s about the car being a sanctuary from the pressures of the world, and for that to work you need to create a real sense of stress and dread. It was great to have the opportunity to play with that darker tone. I think the actress is perfect, she has a young Mia Farrow vibe that adds to the sense of otherworldly eeriness. 

We shot this in downtown LA and at Paramount Studios. LA really works for this. It can be a stressful town and your car does become a sanctuary. It’s like your second home, you spend so much time in it!

This is a great example of how effective it can be mixing CGI with live action. When the walls are closing in, you can tell that’s happening for real. The way she interacts with it, the way the dust moves – you just can’t get that same tactile effect with pure CGI.

At its heart, this is basically a product commercial. But I felt that if we focused just on the bottle, then it could become a bit…flat. So I wanted to get some human moments in there. The interaction between the barman and the guy, and the other characters we glimpse as the bottle goes on its journey. I like how this trip through the characters makes it feel more like a story – more like a film. 

Although I love working with VFX, I’m much more interested in creating a cinematic world through character and emotion. That’s why I put so much attention into casting. I’ve worked on projects where I didn’t get my preferred choice of talent and it can really impact the finished film. I think a lot of people that hire me appreciate that I’m aiming for a very specific tone of performance, so they trust my judgement when it comes to casting. I actually made a cameo appearance in this film, raise your hand if you can spot me.

Looking back at your films is like going through a diary filled with golden memories. I have very fond memories of this shoot in Rome. I often think that you can make a more interesting film about a culture that is not your own. An outsider’s eye can offer a fresh perspective. Clients may be cautious about stereotyping, but I think a director can reinvigorate familiar characters and places by bringing their own unique tone. I like to think I did that here.

Movies give people a chance to escape their own world. That’s a big part of their appeal and it applies to commercials too. I had so much fun creating this heightened, idyllic vision of Rome. I love Vittoria De Sica and Fellini and it was a joy to create my own little slice of Italian cinema.  

This film could easily have been a series of vignettes of city life. I had the idea of connecting them with a travelling camera, to create a journey through a neighbourhood of quirky characters. It gives a real sense of connection and community, which is what the film is all about. And it features another cameo from myself!

This idea really resonated with me. I know that paranoia. I’m the kind of guy that will turn the car around and drive back home to check I turned the coffee machine off. It’s exhausting!

This film is all about the couple’s performances. Even though it’s very dialogue-based, I wanted to layer in some additional visual value. Our Canadian DoP, Christopher Mably, really helped elevate the visuals. This was shot in downtown LA so we got to use this very cool looking restaurant for a backdrop. 

In Nordic countries you often have smaller budgets and therefore commercials can be quite minimalist. So it was great on this shoot to be able to include lots of background details that you might not spot on the first viewing. Like all the crazy things the burglars are carrying, or the waiter going up the stairs with his hat on fire. Little stories within the story. And again, I like the nightmarish yet comedic feel to it. You can totally do that here because it serves the character’s paranoid mind’s eye. 

In the original script, this was more like a musical where everything in the car is singing “Are we there yet?” I thought this might get a bit cheesy and the agency was totally onboard with me adding my own spin on it. It’s always a pleasure to collaborate so effectively with an agency. I had the idea that the kids were controlling these objects with their minds, like evil Harry Potter characters, driving their parents increasingly crazy. I thought this gave it a little more story, a bit of conflict between the characters.

I heard that McDonald’s has cited this commercial in other territories, because it feels like an interesting departure from a lot of their ads. I’ll take that. We must have been doing something right, because the film won a bunch of awards.

This is a CG box, but I actually had a real puppet made to use on the shoot. I operated it myself, pulling its strings to create a very authentic reference for the animator to follow. I remember the agency watching me operate the puppet and wishing they’d used live action puppetry for the whole thing. I’m an old skateboarder so I jumped on a vintage, museum piece skateboard and hung onto the back of the truck to show how that particular scene should be done.

I’ve used puppets a lot in my work. Even at film school I was experimenting with them to create in-camera effects. Live action, puppets, 2D and 3D animation – they’re all the same to me. As a director, I think you need to master them all (in cooperation with the talented artists, of course).

This was an amazing production. We shot these in Krabi, Thailand. The crews there are phenomenal. The tunnels and caves are all real. We had a local snake wrangler pulling deadly snakes from the undergrowth. That statue was seven metres tall and took seven days to make. It was so impressive and I was heartbroken to see it torn down at the end of the shoot.

It was a big crew and at one point I must have been directing at loud volume, because I spooked the elephants. About 14 of them took off into the jungle. One remained, staring me down. Luckily, he thought better of it and ran after the others. I was running through the jungle begging them to get back to their marks. It really was like shooting your own Indiana Jones movie. 

The actor, Tim Downie, took the safari helmet home with him. He told me he wore it to (successfully) audition for the part of adventurer Montgomery Clyde in the Paddington movie. I’m not saying I won him the part, but I like to think I gave him a decent rehearsal in the jungle. 

I loved those iconic Heineken and Stella Artois ads that created such beautifully cinematic, longer-story worlds. I’d always wanted to make one myself. This was my chance to do that and it proved to be one of the most enjoyable shoots I’ve ever done. We shot it in a small town near Rimini, Italy. Like with the Poste Italiane spot, I got to put my own spin on Italian life. This time we were trying to capture the spirit of a village in Southern Italy. For me, it’s not about trying to recreate a specific Italian cinematic style, this isn’t a pastiche. I just try to absorb the feeling of a place. You learn to trust your instincts when building a world like this. 

This is about a quirky community coming together to create something special, so performance is very important. I wanted to give them all a sense of childlike energy – wonder turns into infectious excitement as they run through the village. I think that makes the film so much more charming. It really helps draw us into their world and the story. That’s a big part of world-building for a spot like this.