Robert Campbell-Comedy in Advertising

Episode Summary

Robert Campbell, @808inc, talks about the use of humor in advertising, he is the director and creative director of 808, Inc Productions in Houston, a studio specializing in live-action and animation. He is also president of Wordwide Industries, where he writes for numerous ad agencies on regional and national accounts.

Episode Notes

Transcript

Alan Villatoro:

This is La Pizarra, a place where we explore creative minds in the entertainment industry on both sides of the mic and the camera. Here is your host, Nicky Mondellini.

Nicky Mondellini:

Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of La Pizarra. My name is Nicky Mondellini, and today we’re going to talk about the funny side of things when it comes to advertising. My guest is Robert Campbell. He is director and creative director of 808, Inc Productions in Houston. It’s a studio specializing in live action and animation. He is also president of Wordwide Industries, where he writes for numerous ad agencies on regional and national accounts.

Nicky Mondellini:

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Nicky Mondellini:

Robert Campbell has written for print, web, broadcast, outdoor bathroom walls and everything else, and has directed numerous commercials. In addition to receiving a Cannes Lions, his work has been featured in Ad Age, Creativity, Adweek, at Credit.com Top 10 TBS’s Funniest Commercials On Television and a BBC documentary on advertising. In addition to his day jobs, he speaks at schools and professional organizations around the country. His presentation I Smell Funny, talks about the use of humor in advertising. Robert, welcome to La Pizarra. How are you doing today?

Robert Campbell:

I’m doing wonderful.

Nicky Mondellini:

Wonderful. And we’re enjoying a very, very nice weather in Houston, now that the weather’s getting milder and cooler, so I can attest to that. We’re really enjoying nice weather. But anyway, well there’s so many things that I’d like to ask you, but I thought it would be a good place to start with the very beginning of your career. What was the project that just launched your career in this direction of advertising?

Robert Campbell:

Well, I don’t know that there was any one project, and it’s certainly not like I had a plan of any kind. My career trajectory has really been more of like a pinball. You come out of the shoot, and you know exactly where you’re going. And then you start bouncing into stuff and you end up just kind of ping ponging from one way to another. And then at some point, you fall off out of the game. But I’d have to probably go back to high school, really. My buddies and I would get together and we’d make these short skits using my dad’s Super 8 Camera, one of those old handheld soundless… I forget how much film they accommodated. I want to say it was like maybe 50 feet. It was basically four to five minutes of film.

Robert Campbell:

So we get together on weekends and we’d do parodies of Apocalypse Now, or Star Wars or whatever, or we do these short little skits. I grew up around SCTV and SNL and all that stuff. So I just love kind of that short format, fun joke-telling stuff. So I did that, and I guess my plan, and again it wasn’t really a plan, my thought was that I’d go into film school at high school. And what I ended up doing was getting into the radio television program at the University of Houston. And it was actually a lot of fun. It was not what I had in mind. It was, the program that they had at that time, was built around those big studio live production environments. So you had these huge Norelco cameras in the studio with the big gun turret cranks on them. And you had three of those in the studio, you had the camera operators in the studio, you had audio somewhere else on the premises, and then you had the big television control room with the technical director and the big death star switcher.

Robert Campbell:

And everything was live. All the projects were live. It’s like you get one run through as a practice thing, and then you’re on. And I kind of went into the program thinking, okay I had this image in my mind of what a writer/director was. And it was kind of that plus reality. It’s like everything happening live, everything goes wrong. And then you have to kind of factor into your workflow unexpected things, which will always happen. So like I said, I had this image in my mind of what a writer was and what a writer did. And this was, I guess being so close to reality, it was a lot sloppier than what I anticipated. But I enjoyed it. It was a lot of fun.

Robert Campbell:

Now while I was going to school and studying all this stuff, I got a job. A friend of mine got me a job at a small ad agency. And when I say small ad agency, it’s one of those places where basically you come in and if you work there, you do everything. So I was there, I did dark room work. I did photography. I did videography. I was a writer. I was an illustrator, art director, production artist, even actor from time to time. It was-

Nicky Mondellini:

Wonderful.

Robert Campbell:

It wasn’t exactly… I’ve actually kind of worked in the industry for a while now. And the way that was done is really not the way it’s supposed to be done, kind of in that laboratory environment advertising. It was sloppy, and we did a lot of things that we weren’t supposed to do, probably put lives in danger. But it was a lot of fun and it was exciting. It was just kind of this whole thing of making stuff up on the fly. And it’s not going to be perfect, but you move on and you kind of adapt and accommodate. So as I was doing this, kind of working while I was going to school, I started thinking about the academic path I was taking. And I really started going back to what I was doing in high school with my friends, which is, that’s the sort of thing you do because you have fun doing it. And I have a very short attention span. And those 30 minutes or those five-minute movies we did when I was in high school, really meshed with the world of commercial advertising where really they’re like 30-second movies.

Nicky Mondellini:

And we are back after a little tech issue there. Connections sometimes fail that we get a little bit of a freeze, but that’s okay, and then we’re going through that. But anyway, you were saying about how your short attention span worked very well for those 30-second movies that are commercials. So tell me how you were really not only doing everything for it. You started writing more and more for it, and then trying to pack all of that attention and looking for the finer points when you’re doing a 30-second spot.

Robert Campbell:

Yeah. I have a short attention span, so I forgot whatever it was I was talking about. But yeah, as I was working while I was going to school in advertising, like I said, it dawned on me that that might be a little more appropriate, given that this whole very attractive notion to me of having these 30-second movies essentially was what a commercial is. You have a targeted goal, you have a really specific objective and you set off and you solve it. So I ended up switching my major at the University of Houston from radio television to journalism. At the time, they didn’t have an advertising program per se. So I went into journalism, and took what advertising classes they offered. And when I graduated, I had an internship here with a local agency and then later got a job with a local agency and worked my way up to writer, senior writer, creative director, director, and then whatever it is that I do now.

Nicky Mondellini:

Everything. You do everything, Robert. Well-

Robert Campbell:

Yeah, we all do.

Nicky Mondellini:

Yes, we all do. It’s amazing how in this career, in show business, wherever you go, and you want to get to know a little bit more about what you’re doing, you’re not just content with showing up and learning your lines, being an actor, and then you start paying attention to the way things are produced. And then all of a sudden, well, you know what? You want to dip your toe into everything else. And then why not hold a camera or grab some cords or whatever, and then just say, “You know what? I think at some point, I might want to start my own company or partner up with someone.” The more you get into it, the more you are involved. You want to be part of everything that is being created. And that translates into wearing several hats. We have to learn a little bit of everything, right?

Robert Campbell:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we did a little bit of everything, definitely working at the smaller agency. I think at one point, I was tasked with removing a 100-foot beehive from the back of the building, which I don’t know how good that looks on a resume, but it was definitely interesting.

Nicky Mondellini:

So now, I want to ask you, in your presentation I Smell Funny, there’s something that you said that says, “When done right, humor is a powerful and surprisingly cost effective tool for differentiating a brand and connecting with customers.” Okay. So this is going to be a two-part question. First of all, what are the elements that make a good comedic spot, from your perspective?

Robert Campbell:

Well, okay. I’m going to give you a 50-part response to your two-part question, if I can keep the connection here. So yeah. When I was working at BBDO, every year, they would send down the super bowl reel of all the super bowl commercials they were doing. And I noticed that 95% of them were humor spots. And when Gene Hollister, who was the executive producer I worked with at BBDO, he broke off and started 808, a local production company. And I joined him, and we sort of took that philosophy without even understanding why or thinking about why we took that philosophy with us. And one of the things we encountered, when you’re at BBDO, like I said, it was sort of expected that if you were doing commercials, they were funny commercials, they were humorous commercials. And I say it was expected of us as part of the creative department, but it was also something that the clients we had tended to expect. A few questions were asked.

Robert Campbell:

And breaking off and taking that same proposition to a local market with local and regional clients where you don’t have these insanely high budgets, you get a little pushback. It’s like you’d present something that, “Oh, this here’s a funny spot.” And they’d look at you like you were an adorable puppy that has just crapped on their expensive Persian rug. It’s like, “Yeah, that’s really cute, but you’re not going to be doing that again.” So I started looking at it like why are we doing humor? Is this really the most responsible thing we can do as communicators to put together a humorous spot? Is this how we should be spending our clients’ money? And the more I thought about it, what is it that sells? It’s, as human beings, we tend to think of ourselves as rational beings.

Robert Campbell:

But I believe that our decisions are based almost entirely on emotions. And if there is a rational part, if there is a rational lobular in our brain, its only purpose is to take those emotional decisions that we make and rationalize them in such ways to make us think that, “Well, that was a smart decision I made.” I think we make emotional decisions and then we try to make sense of them later. But at any rate, it’s clear that emotion sells. Without digging too deep into the whole ancient Greek definitions of tragedy and comedy, tragedy is not the best way to sell urinary tract infection medication, for example.

Nicky Mondellini:

Yeah. Definitely.

Robert Campbell:

Humor is, if I can carry that metaphor a little further, it’s like a Trojan horse. It’s a way of getting past that wall of consumer skepticism and deliver a message without all the burning and pillaging, so to speak.

Nicky Mondellini:

There you go. Yeah.

Robert Campbell:

But you were asking what are the elements of a good comedic spot. Yeah, there isn’t really one. It’s a whole chain of things. And I think one of the first ones, and as a creative person, this is almost sacrilegious to say, but money is kind of a big one. Starting off, what are your limitations? As an example, we had a client. I don’t want to name the client, but they had, let’s just call it a warehousing product that they were selling. And we had a creative concept that involved basically this store that was, instead of purchasing this product, they purchased a warehouse gorilla that did all of the work that this product was supposed to do, that was designed to do. And obviously, that did not work out well in the context of this commercial.

Robert Campbell:

So I think the tagline was this product is better than a warehouse gorilla. And we liked the idea, the client liked the idea. It looked really funny and effective on script. But we got into a situation where, “Okay. How much money do we have to do this?” And it was, I think we had $15,000 to pull this off. So obviously you can’t rent a gorilla for $15,000. You can possibly rent an animatronic suit for $15,000, but you’d have nobody to operate it, and you wouldn’t have any money to do anything else. So we ended up, at the end of the day, doing this compositing trick. And so I had this spot that basically it was a two-minute piece, I think. But we spent two minutes building up to this huge punchline, this huge reveal. And then we get to the reveal, and it falls flat.

Robert Campbell:

Now the client was happy with it, and it actually did the business objectives that were set out. It had actually accomplished those. But it was, as far as a creative spot or something that we would put on a reel, it was just, for us, it fell a little flat. So again, that’s the first question, is what’s the budget? What are the limitations of this project? If you’re doing a funny script… And I guess maybe just to back up a little bit on funny advertising, it’s really, I don’t want to kind of push it as funny advertising and refer to it as funny advertising, it’s really using an emotion to sell a product or using something that makes you feel good watching it. Some products lend themselves to more heartfelt executions, and a lot of them do that very well. I’m personally not very good at that. I tend to gravitate towards the humor, and yet I’m not really that funny of a person. I can’t tell a joke to save my life.

Robert Campbell:

But I’m really careful about referring to it as funny advertising. It’s that whole Joe Pesci thing. It’s like, “Funny how? How am I funny? What’s funny here?” And then I’ve been in situations with clients where you pitch something as a funny spot and they literally tell you, “I’m not here to make fun of my brand.” And what do you say at that point?

Robert Campbell:

So it’s really just emotion without the emotional investment, I guess. It’s strategically how I would put it. But anyway, like I said, money. I guess the second element would be script. It’s got to be a good script. And there’s a whole thing with that, working with actors in particular. I like to have in mind an actor. And honestly, every writer is sort of, in their own mind, they’re a failed actor. They’re performing their little screenplay in the theater of their own skull. But you write it to be performed. If you’re doing a commercial, you write it to be performed. And a lot of times I want to have that person in mind, as I’m writing it, which somehow, it’s almost like you’re pulling from them through the ether to write something, and then in turn, put that into the script and then give it back to them. But you have to have solid actors, solid performers. I’ve had really good actors take really bad scripts from me and turn them into something amazing and I get credit for it. But it’s total performance.

Robert Campbell:

It always helps with advertising in particular, if you’re relevant. You’re not just doing something for the sake of humor, you’re doing something on the commercial side of art. You need to be relevant. We’ve all had the experience where you think of a really funny spot, but you can’t remember the client that it was for, which kind of defeats the purpose of selling it in the first place.

Nicky Mondellini:

Yeah, for sure.

Robert Campbell:

I think Geico, they have consistently done really good work for years. They’ve associated with the brand solidly. One of my favorite spots of all time was the old FedEx spot, the fast talker, John Moschitta, I think, the fast talking guy with FedEx. Anyway, if you haven’t seen this spot-

Nicky Mondellini:

I remember that one I was…

Robert Campbell:

You were?

Nicky Mondellini:

I was probably not in the US yet.

Robert Campbell:

Well, Google it. It’s really funny. But at any rate, you have to be relevant. You have to sort of link with the brand and the mind. Of course, you have to be funny, and funny is a real subjective thing. What’s funny today will probably not be funny next week. Again, I’ve done so many things that just make me cringe now. I remember back when we were doing campaigns for a large oil and gas client. One of the comments I got from one of our clients was, after presenting a spot, they said, “Okay. I was asking for Bob Hope funny. But you’ve given me Milton Berle funny.” And I had no idea what he meant at the time, and I’m still not sure I know what he meant by that, but oh well.

Nicky Mondellini:

Yeah. Brand of humor, he wanted probably a little bit more slap sticky, or?

Robert Campbell:

Maybe.

Nicky Mondellini:

Who knows. Who knows. Yeah.

Robert Campbell:

It could be it.

Nicky Mondellini:

Yeah. And I see, a lot of the times, irony plays a big part in humor, in putting something through, trying to think strong emotions are there, are present, and that people draw from or place themselves in that spot, and they’re like, “Oh yeah, that’s right,” because it’s very ironic. And then immediately, they relate to it and then they think of a situation of theirs. But still, like you said, it has to relate to the product. You still need to remember the name of the product, right?

Robert Campbell:

Yeah.

Nicky Mondellini:

So what are-

Robert Campbell:

If you can relate to somebody’s emotional experience or emotional history, and relate to a product, you’ve done your job.

Nicky Mondellini:

Yeah, definitely. And what are some of the hardest things to try to sell to a client? You mentioned the budget, of course. But also, do you find that there’re problems, or maybe just obstacles with, I don’t know, like frame of mind, maybe they’re a little bit too conservative? Like you come straight out of the box with really outrageous ideas, even if they’re within budget, but that you might find that wall of, they’re they want to keep to be more conservative or they don’t want to offend certain people. How do you handle those situations?

Robert Campbell:

Well, you have to sort of take them on a case by case basis. A lot of it deals with you have to factor in how… When you’re presenting an idea, there are a certain number of blanks that, who you’re presenting to, are going to have to fill in on their own. Now, some people think conceptually, we’ve had clients that you can give them a one minute set up on something and they exactly have a clear picture in their mind of what it’s going to be. And a lot of clients literally need every step sort of explained and illustrated. Sometimes, you go in with what we call a key frame, just a single frame representing a mood or a vibe even, and then you just kind of walk through or perform the spot.

Robert Campbell:

Other times, you need a fleshed out storyboard. And we used to sort of have a formula for doing it the same way each time. But over the years, I’ve come to realize that certain clients, if you show them too much, they’ll get in their mind that it needs to be a certain way. And any variation from that, you’re going to run into some problems down the road. And we were talking, I think offline earlier about trends and stuff. One of the trends I’ve seen in the past 10 to 15 years is just the level of involvement at every step of the process with clients. And collaboration really is great. But there’s a bad side to that too. Particularly if they have a hard time seeing where you’re going to end up, point A or point B might scare the heck out of them before they get to the end of the assembly line.

Robert Campbell:

We had a television spot we did many years ago, and in the spot, we had a couple of mechanics. And they were not for the client we were representing. This was sort of the problem-solution thing. “Don’t take your car to these guys, take it to these guys.” So we needed a couple of Numbskulls country mechanics to sort of do what they do, to show the problem part of the equation. And so we had a script, we had a storyboard, and it was pretty straightforward. Conceptually, if I was explaining the concept of the spot, I don’t think it would’ve changed much.

Robert Campbell:

But what we ended up doing was we brought in some actor performers. These were improvisational actors. I think at least one of the guys was a former grounding. They possibly both were. But we brought these guys in, and we shot the boards, the first part of the day, and the client was there. Of course, the clients are always there on the shoot. And they signed off on everything. And always at some point in the day, everybody starts checking their voicemail, and they pay a little less attention to what’s going on. So what we ended up doing is we set these improvisational actors, performers, we set them up, in this garage, and let the cameras roll and just kind of let them riff off of each other. And we captured just all kinds of craziness on film.

Robert Campbell:

And when we got it back, the spots we cut looked nothing like the spots we had boarded. And then again we had that, we had our bases covered. But by the time we presented everything to the client, they were ecstatic about it. They loved it. And it was something that even us as the creative team couldn’t have anticipated doing.

Nicky Mondellini:

Wow, that’s wonderful, when that thing happens and things just flourish in an unexpected way. That’s amazing.

Robert Campbell:

Yeah.

Nicky Mondellini:

Okay. So now I’m going to go back to the second part of that initial question, which was, is there a wrong way, or what are the wrong ways to do comedy? Which you sort of alluded to, but more specifically the big no-nos. “If you want to do a comedic spot, stay away from this.” Is there anything you can think of?

Robert Campbell:

Oh, yeah. I think my answer for this would be a lot shorter. It’s if it makes you laugh, it’s funny. And if it doesn’t-

Nicky Mondellini:

Don’t.

Robert Campbell:

That’s really the simple way out. Like I said, it’s between the writing and the performance and understanding the limitations, the production limitations, the financial limitations, being confident in the process and maybe sticking to the plan as much as you can, but being open to serendipity, the unexpected. Not just being open to it, but just embracing it. I was talking about the two guys we brought in. And we asked the guy during the presentation or during the shoot, we asked the guy if he knew any stupid tricks. And he actually did this really stupid trick. I’m not going to say what it is, but you can go to 808inc.com and look at the spot, and you can see the stupid trick that he does.

Nicky Mondellini:

What is the name of that spot, to identify?

Robert Campbell:

I believe it’s something like maybe dipsticks. It’s for Texaco Xpress Lube.

Nicky Mondellini:

Oh, okay.

Robert Campbell:

But la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la, where was I? Oh yeah.

Nicky Mondellini:

Yeah. The stupid tricks.

Robert Campbell:

Stupid tricks. That is a question that we figured it’s good to ask any actor in advance of a production to, if they have any stupid tricks in their portfolio, to haul them out.

Nicky Mondellini:

Just to incorporate. Well, that’s good. And I guess it’s going back to do not be too strict, and let nice and unexpected things come through, because you might end up just finding out a lot more than you were expecting that you can integrate into the spot and just make it so much more interesting.

Robert Campbell:

Yeah. And it can drive line producers crazy to do things last minute. But they’re going to happen anyway. The unexpected’s going to happen anyway. You might as well get your mind okay with rolling with it, because you never know. And it may work and it may not. Don’t be afraid. Okay, you’re talking about the nots. I think don’t be afraid to try something, if you’re able to, and don’t be afraid to admit that something that you thought was going to work isn’t going to work, because from personal experience, I’ve stuck with things much longer than I should have.

Nicky Mondellini:

Well, definitely. Yeah, I can see how that can work. On one hand, you just want to follow with whatever you had written and you want to follow that line, but keeping an open mind and just letting things come through. Now, I want us to take a look at this spot that you sent me. I love it. Personally, I think it’s really hilarious, and it’s called Poodle Pants. So let’s take a little pause here, and I’m going to insert it, and then we’ll talk about it.

Audio:

I’ll take them.

Audio:

Have you picked out the pants?

Audio:

The pants?

Audio:

For the poodle.

Audio:

The poodle needs pants?

Audio:

Of course, the poodle needs pants.

Audio:

But he’s a poodle.

Audio:

Is there a problem?

Audio:

The gentleman doesn’t think the poodle needs pants.

Audio:

Trust us, this poodle needs pants.

Audio:

But he’s a poodle.

Audio:

Without pants, do yourself a favor, get the poodle some pants.

Audio:

Tired of buying stuff you don’t need? Teligistics takes the confusion out of phone company rape plans. It’s what you need, and only what you need.

Nicky Mondellini:

Okay. So Poodle Pants is hilarious and those-

Robert Campbell:

Oh, thank you.

Nicky Mondellini:

… actors are just phenomenal. They’re phenomenal, and you see the intention of it. And you make a really good point, it’s like definitely don’t let yourself be sold into things that you don’t really need. But the way that you express it there, how did that concept come about with the Poodle Pants?

Robert Campbell:

Well, okay. Before we get into that, do you remember the name of the advertiser or the client, the product?

Nicky Mondellini:

It was… Oh my goodness. That’s a good point.

Robert Campbell:

I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to put you on the spot.

Nicky Mondellini:

Insurance company? No. No. No. Was it like an insurance company?

Robert Campbell:

It was Teligistics, and it was, I believe, a company that simplified rate plans. And I didn’t mean to put you on the spot because honestly, the only reason I remember it was because I did it, and I looked at it. But-

Nicky Mondellini:

And the name was on the script.

Robert Campbell:

And, I don’t know if you noticed, that was my voiceover at the end of that. But if-

Nicky Mondellini:

Oh, that’s right. Yeah.

Robert Campbell:

If I was going to critique that spot, and I know that you liked it and thank you so much, I actually do like the spot too, but I do think if I was to critique it, it doesn’t really make that connection with the client. It’s probably one of those sort of nebulous value propositions that it’s like, this is a weird situation. Here’s a much simpler and easier situation. So that said, I didn’t mean to poodle poop on my own spot, but there you go.

Nicky Mondellini:

Nice one.

Robert Campbell:

What were your questions on that? It was a fun one to do, for sure.

Nicky Mondellini:

Yeah, the concept, just coming up with a concept, because I think it’s brilliant.

Robert Campbell:

Well, thank you so much. And it was a fun script, it was a fun spot. We pitched it to the client, and then the client decided that was not the direction they wanted to go in. I’m trying to think if we even did anything for this particular client. But we ended up producing this piece on our own without a client, just because we liked it so much. The actors were great in it. And actually, the director of that spot is the customer. We cast a number of actors for that role, and couldn’t quite get what we were looking for. And then the director, who is also an actor, and is also, I believe he was also a former grounding Steve Burrows, an amazing director, we actually talked him into playing the part of the customer in that.

Robert Campbell:

But it’s sort of multipurpose created. One of the thoughts was we’d produce the spot and then take it back to the client later and they’d be so compelled to go with it that it would eventually run, but they still decided against running it and it broke our hearts. So sad.

Nicky Mondellini:

Oh man.

Robert Campbell:

Because it’s got a dog in it.

Nicky Mondellini:

And you got a great demo.

Robert Campbell:

Oh yeah.

Nicky Mondellini:

Oh, yeah.

Robert Campbell:

And you can’t go wrong when you put a dog in something. And you put pants on that dog? Come on. Come on, that’s-

Nicky Mondellini:

And glitzy pants at that, definitely.

Robert Campbell:

Glitzy pants, for sure.

Nicky Mondellini:

Oh yeah. You have all of the elements there, and you hit a lot of different demographics, the animal lovers. And as I mentioned there, I know a lot of people who would actually buy pants for their poodles, that like to dress up their dogs. And so why not. But yeah, it goes to show that they’re so serious about, “Get the pants. You got to get the pants.” And yeah, it’s funny you are putting that kind of a situation, and then it happens many times where they sell you the insurance for that. And then you get the added services and this and that. And they try to muscle their way into telling you, you’re going to need all of those things when you actually don’t. So I really personally think it does make a point.

Robert Campbell:

Well, thank you. Thank you very much.

Nicky Mondellini:

Sorry about [inaudible].

Robert Campbell:

I’m probably just being… I’m just a downer. I’m a downer, sometimes. I will say this, since this is a podcast for actors, we did provide direction on the casting for that particular spot. But each of the actors, definitely the actors we ended up going with, they brought a little more backstory, I guess, to the performance or to the audition. So when you’re presenting an idea, or at least when I’m presenting an idea, sometimes I talk fast for one thing, but I sometimes tend to plow through a script without going into great deal of explanation on their motivations and backs stories and everything.

Robert Campbell:

But each of those actors brought in kind of a different perspective. There’s the kid, he’s obviously new at the job and probably a little self-conscious. He’s encountering a new situation and he doesn’t know what to do. And then the manager comes in, and he’s been around, he’s confident with little sales, maybe he can probably smooth this situation over. But then we have the muscle come in. He’s kind of the bad boy. I don’t know if this is going to get violent at some point, but if this guy’s not open to getting the poodle some pants, then maybe we can do something about it. We can do a little persuasion, making a poodle offer he can’t refuse.

Robert Campbell:

But like I was going to say, all these guys brought that to the audition, and it wasn’t something we put into the profile when we were casting that. And I really appreciated that attention to detail. So as an actor, bringing that to an audition, sometimes assume that the writer may not have a clear idea in mind. Plus it in any way you can.

Nicky Mondellini:

Yeah. So that’s a nice segue into my next question, is how do approach that or what do you look for specifically when you cast, when you put the specifications and then when you’re looking at people and how they approach it, what things are you looking for? Comedic timing, as much as what else they can bring to the audition?

Robert Campbell:

Yeah. I guess comedic timing is kind of a big catchall. It helps again, if the writer has kind of a clear idea of what the story is, and you have an actor who gets that. And as a writer and an advertiser, I try to put as much of that into a description or explanation as possible. You can get past that point where you’re over guiding or over directing something that needs to happen organically at some point. I don’t want to… Again, I think embracing the unexpected also includes what an actor is going to bring to the role. So I appreciate it. And you’re not always going to have an opportunity to put a lot of backstory into a character or an announcer, if it isn’t a straight announcer, if you’re doing some sort of a performance based commercial. It’s not always something that’s needed, but if it’s not needed, they may not be looking for it, and it may kind of subtly sneak in and overwhelm them.

Nicky Mondellini:

Yeah, exactly. So, yeah. So then that’s the thing. It’s like you don’t always know how much you can bring to whatever they tell you or the casting director tells you, “Do this, do that,” and you don’t always have all of the backstory. So sometimes it’s good. Sometimes they even send us the storyboard and then you get the big picture. But a lot of the times, you only get half of the information. So it’s a little bit harder to come out and just improvise things. But a good point would be to maybe don’t hold back or don’t be afraid to show a little bit more, to create more of your own backstory and see if that maybe sheds light into other things. And the director can see other things that he might have not been expecting that he can use.

Robert Campbell:

Right. Yeah, there are obviously production tricks you can fall on when you get to the point where you’re actually shooting something. But in an audition tape, it’s usually pretty simple and straightforward. You’ve got a consumer camera on one end and a couple of chairs set up in a studio on the other. So really, it’s all on the actor to kind of put it all out there. The interesting little backstory on the two guys, the dipsticks, the two guys at the car shop or whatever, we had those actors show up on set that day. And one of them seemed like a normal guy, talking with everyone, kind of interacting with everyone. Seemed like just a regular guy.

Robert Campbell:

And then the second guy just kind of stayed off in a corner by himself talking to himself, kind of looking at stuff, spilled his coffee a few times. And at the end of the day, both of them did a fantastic job. The second guy, as it turns out, was he was getting into character, kind of a method actor. And it just showed two completely different approaches to performance, which I thought was interesting. Like I said, they both did a great job, but it was just two completely different approaches to it.

Nicky Mondellini:

Yeah, exactly. And you don’t always know how much you’re going to have to prepare. But yeah, it’s always really interesting what comes out and the unexpected things. And in that sense, when you have the client there and he’s present, because they don’t always come for the whole shoot, but when they’re there and they start proposing a little too much, does it ever get on your nerves or how do you handle that sort of situation when you know they’re maybe steering it in the wrong direction that it’s going to collide a little bit with the original story or the new things that are coming out that you say, “That’s going to be even better?” So how do you handle those?

Robert Campbell:

It’s a balancing act. I’m always open to new interpretations, but there are limitations, there’re physical limitations. You start running over time on a production and then it gets to be, is it that important to get this, that it’s going to sacrifice us getting the next shot or the next two shots or whatever. And you could also get to a point with an actor where it’s tough. One of the toughest things is you’re not… One of the reasons I enjoyed making Poodle Pants was that we didn’t have a client breathing down our neck on that shoot. It was just us. And it was funny or it wasn’t funny. And it was a pretty tough crowd. So we just kept at it until we got it.

Robert Campbell:

And we didn’t have any other weird considerations we had to deal with. And I say weird considerations like they’re not valid. They are. It’s the client’s dime. They’re spending the money on this. And it’s not just funny. It helps that it’s funny, but the main point is that it’s selling something. It’s getting a message out there. I’ve wondered off topic. What point was I going to make, Nicky? I forgot. It was important.

Nicky Mondellini:

Yeah. It’s just about how do you handle it when the client is there and he’s probably not letting you do the full on take. Like they want to steer things in a different way-

Robert Campbell:

Yeah, it’s delicate.

Nicky Mondellini:

… and it’s aligning with your whole idea.

Robert Campbell:

Yeah. It’s a delicate process, of course. And at some point, I think it gets to be obvious when you’re not getting what you need. You’re literally just kind of beating down an actor, trying to get them to do something a certain way that may not even be right. I tend to respect the actor a lot, particularly if, number one, we selected them for a reason, and number two, if it’s somebody who’s put some thought into the backstory, into the history of this character, what their motivations are. That counts for something. If that’s what they’re drawing for their performance, it’s valid. So yeah, it’s a tight rope. At some point, you’re just kind of like, “Well, that was good. We’ll look at it later and see what it feels like in the edit.” And then reality sets in where, okay if we want to get the rest of the schedule done, then we need to move forward.

Nicky Mondellini:

Yeah, exactly. Is there something that has made a difference in the way that you’ve achieved success in your career?

Robert Campbell:

Have I? Have I achieved success? That was a trick question.

Nicky Mondellini:

Yes, you have.

Robert Campbell:

That was a tricky answer.

Nicky Mondellini:

You have a success…

Robert Campbell:

I would say yeah.

Nicky Mondellini:

I would say yes you have.

Robert Campbell:

I would say actually yes. And this goes all the way back early on where any creative person feels this, whether you’re a writer, whether you’re a designer, an art director, artist, actor, you feel kind of that block, that creative block, whether it’s a blank sheet of paper or whatever it is, this idea that you have to create something, and that it’s all on you. I think what’s made a huge difference for me, and I have that, by the way, I think everyone kind of does, everyone’s intimidated by that blank sheet of paper and you have to put something on it, especially if you’ve got a deadline breathing down your neck, but what’s helped me in that approach was I think the realization that it’s… I think creativity is kind of a misused and misunderstood word. Ultimately, and this is my personal philosophy, there’s probably a lot of talented people who would disagree with me, but I don’t look at it as creating something. You’re not literally playing God. You’re not creating something from nothing.

Robert Campbell:

We all draw from our personal experiences, the environment, books we’ve read, things we’ve watched on TV and at theater, relationships, everything. We’re drawing on this vast reservoir of experience. And if you’re predisposed to being a creative person or someone who does that professionally, you’re going to form opinions naturally. You’re going to have things that you like and things that you don’t like. “I like what this musician did in this song.” And that’s, you’re drawing necessarily from that experience. Trees don’t grow in mid-air. You’re drawing from a wealth of experience. And it’s kind of like the chimpanzees. They’ll put the blocks in the enclosure with the chimpanzees and they’ll stack the blocks in a certain way to get to the banana. They’re not creating those blocks. They’re just arranging them in a certain way to accomplish something.

Robert Campbell:

In kind of a weird metaphor there, it’s kind of what we do. We’re putting together different things in different ways. You’re not creating something out of nothing. It’s not that big of a responsibility. And a lot of this, I think, maybe kind of goes back to… Rightly or wrongly, when I got my first job in advertising, I kind of had a lot of those pressures wrapped up in my perception of what the job entailed. And I went through quite a bit of pavement pounding to get my first real job out of college. And I finally got a call back to come in and take, I think the absolute lowest job on the totem pole. And I came in, I got the job. I was so happy with myself. And then I found out that the reason they called me was because the guy they had hired originally had been arrested for grand larceny and technically couldn’t show up for work. So I was the backup to that guy. So because of that-

Nicky Mondellini:

Okay, whatever it takes, man.

Robert Campbell:

Yeah. Well, it’s kind of, for better or worse, it sort of flavored my inability to take advertising too seriously. It’s the way I look at creativity, is that really, it’s a puzzle. You’re solving a problem. And that’s why I love limitations. I love kind of those little borders you draw around your task, your endeavor, your goal with, “This is what you have to work with.” There’s a really cool scene in Apollo 13, where Ed Harris comes in and the astronauts, their oxygen tank has blown up and they’re kind of on this uncontrolled orbit to the moon.

Robert Campbell:

And he walks into this room full of engineers. And he dumps a box full of all these different pieces of equipment, representing what the astronauts have to work with and say, “Okay, this is what you got. Let’s use this to get these guys back from the moon.” And in a sense, it’s kind of you have all these limitations, all these sort of boundaries that you have to work with, and it’s a puzzle and it’s fun. It’s fun to solve these creative puzzles. So that really, it’s enabled me to sort of tackle creative projects in a way that if I was frozen by that blank sheet of paper, I don’t know that I’ve ever done that. And it’s made something that could be sort of intimidating into something that’s kind of challenging in a fun way. So I still enjoy it.

Nicky Mondellini:

Yeah, of course. In other words, really, to get past that writer’s block or putting too much pressure on yourself is thinking, “You know what? No, you don’t have to invent something that hasn’t been invented.” You just have to use all of your resources of what you are, put yourself into it and then see it’s perfectly okay to grab situations that have been done before, but now it’s going to be with your take, with your point of view. So that’s a nice way of putting it.

Robert Campbell:

And there’s so much good work out there. You never know how something’s going to influence you or even what’s going to influence you. And sometimes, it’s just kind of floating around in your head and through your system. And it flavors who you are. So I think there’s a lot of pressure that creative people put on themselves that may not be necessary.

Nicky Mondellini:

Definitely. And let’s talk now about this business is just so full of peaks and valleys of your successful and then you’re not, and then you throw into the mix a lot of obstacles. So how do you personally navigate hard times? For example being in lockdown during the pandemic and everything that that brought with it in the business? A lot of studios had to shut down. Nobody was able to work, everything had to be put on hold. So how was that for you?

Robert Campbell:

Well as a writer, I’ve been very fortunate specifically with the pandemic. That aspect of my work, I can do for my little, my little man grotto here. I can do 90% of that here. Production meetings get to be a little challenging, or have been over the past year. And I think that’s something that everybody’s getting used to. With 808, we’ve been on quite a few productions. And honestly, peaks and valleys describe even kind of this COVID period. It’s just when you think things are loosening up, they ratchet down again. But again, I’ve been very fortunate in that I can do a lot of what I do from anywhere. Very appreciative of that. But I think the other key is just being adaptable. You’re podcasting, for example. You’re exploring new areas. I think it’s an opportunity to do new things and create new experiences that you can absorb and send out later.

Nicky Mondellini:

Yeah. And then you’re discovering other things that you would’ve never looked at had there not been the situation where you have to be in lockdown. And so yeah, for sure, just like you’re mentioning the podcasting and everything else, but also it’s giving yourself a chance to think about other things in a different way, that now you have time for, or that you have been forced to look at in a different way and solving things in a completely different way. So what is one last piece of advice that you want to give to people that are producers or writers, it could be either for advertising, or film, or whatever else, that you would’ve liked to have heard yourself at the beginning of your career.

Robert Campbell:

Don’t take no for an answer. I was going to say, I’ve done the thing where you go back and you look at the stuff that’s in your first portfolio, or on your first reel, and you kind of cringe a little bit. You were so pleased and proud of yourself… And I’m speaking strictly for myself, so pleased and proud of yourself at the time. And then you look at it later and it’s like, “Oh. Ouch. Somebody should have told me to go back to driving a truck or ripping beehives out of buildings. But what I mean by don’t take no for an answer, I mean stick with it. If it’s something you enjoy, even if there… And there will be people who tell you that you’re no good at it.

Robert Campbell:

If you enjoy it, you’ll become good at it. It becomes a craft that you hone. You improve, and gradually it becomes… You immerse yourself in that world. And again, it’s like you’re a thinking being. So you can form your opinions of what’s good and what’s not, and then you grow as you do that. So stick with it. Stick with it. If you truly enjoy it, you’ll become as good as you think you are, or as good as you want to be, or as good as you want to think you will be.

Nicky Mondellini:

Definitely.

Robert Campbell:

I’m not sure what tense I’m on there, but you get the idea.

Nicky Mondellini:

All of the above are very true. Yeah, definitely. And I think that is spot on advice because we tend to beat ourselves up so much and are so tentative about doing something. When we hear that first big no, and like, “Oh no, it’s not going to work,” out or whatever. And if we believe that person too much, and then we stop believing in ourselves and what we can do, then that’s it. They ruin your creativity. But we do hear a lot of nos before we hear a yes in this business. Right?

Robert Campbell:

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I think in any business, anybody-

Nicky Mondellini:

In any business, yeah.

Robert Campbell:

… the worst thing you can do, if it’s something that you enjoy doing, letting somebody else reign on your parade, go for it.

Nicky Mondellini:

Definitely. Robert, oh my goodness, it’s been such a pleasure talking to you today. Thank you so much for joining me. I know you have-

Robert Campbell:

Thank you.

Nicky Mondellini:

… plenty of things that you’re doing and the talks that you’re giving and everything. And so, yeah this has been really very helpful, and some very useful tips for young producers and writers. And I wish you continued success with 808 and anything that is coming along.

Robert Campbell:

Thank you so much, Nicky. It’s been a pleasure.

Alan Villatoro:

Thanks for joining us on La Pizarra. Want to listen to more episodes? Visit lapizarrapodcast.com or nickymondellini.com/lapizarra, where you can sign up for our newsletter and get exclusive previews of future episodes, as well as resources for your creative business. Tune in next week for another interesting interview.