4. Ridley Scott
Next up, we have the brothers Scott. Ridley and Tony Scott to be more exact. They're elite directors, who combined, have made some of the most high profile action/genre films of the past 30 years. When taking into account their commercial directing careers, you must start with Ridley. Out of all the directors on this list, the commercial he directed in 1984 for Apple Computers is one of the most iconic examples of a mainstream director directing for a commercial company. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNy-7jv0XSc Yes, it's the famous Macintosh ad aired during the Superbowl of 1984. How shocked the average football fan must have been when, in between pizza bites and victory chants, a vision of dystopian, Orwellian science fiction flashed across the screen. It's a bold piece of directing (note the homage to
Metropolis) especially considering how many iconic images Ridley is able to cram into a one minute spot. It's the the gold standard for Superbowl commercials and set a new benchmark for commercial direction in general. It will certainly be more fondly remembered than those asinine "I'm a Mac, and I'm a PC" ads. Naturally, Ridley was considered a wunderkind after the Apple spot. Clearly this was a guy who could be trusted to produce superior product under extreme pressure. Kodak must have considered this when he was hired to direct a commercial for them in 1992. Now the average Kodak commercial is usually nothing to get excited about. That is unless that Kodak commercial happens to have its showcase during the 1992 Olympic games. In case you didn't know, the Olympics are kind of a big deal all around the world. American football is a popular sport, but it doesn't even touch the broad appeal and stature of the Olympic games. If you're a big company and you want a spot shown in the Olympics, you don't want it to just have national appeal, but worldwide appeal. You want it to have sprawling scope, and limitless imagination. You also want to play it safe and not be too experimental (like most Superbowl ads tend not to be) as not to offend cultures different than your own. In other words, you want a spot exactly like the one Ridley Scott was able to deliver. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6S_CfHSlSg He must have been flying high by then. He had directed two hugely successful and iconic commercials. He proved that he could work well with crowds and large scale special effects, but you have to wonder if he still had the ability to direct a simple commercial. Not all manufacturers want their wares promoted in a garish, overblown fashion. After the Olympics ad, Ridley's commercial persona probably scared away any manufacturer with a more humble vision of their product. Perhaps those small time business minds might have been put at ease if they had seen one of Ridley Scott's earliest commercials. Before the high profile clients and big budget productions, Ridley was just a blossoming young filmmaker, who if called upon, could direct sweet little commercials for whatever sweet little product you were hawking. Say for instance you're a bread manufacturer whose name is Hovis, and you want a simple ad that demonstrates the hard work, warmth and joy that is baked into each and every slice of Hovis bread. I imagine you couldn't do much better than this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dfAk3hxrSM It's a wonder, considering the maudlin, sentimental tone of this commercial (note the warm, heavily accented narrator) that Ridley wasn't tapped by the Hallmark cooperation to helm their ads.