#FlashbackFriday #FBF Do you remember our exclusive interview with Brian Lazzaro? This story got the Cover of StudentFilmmakers Magazine, August 2007 Issue.
Consumer-Generated Ad Contest Lands Music Video Director His First Commercial
Brian Lazzaro’s Videography Methods Contribute to a Successful Transition from MTV to National Commercial
Interview conducted by Larry Jaffee
The tremendous growth of YouTube.com has led to a growing trend of marketers who now are relying on the mass public to come up with clever videos that can form the basis of their next advertising campaigns.
Often companies launch contests soliciting what’s now fondly known as “consumer-generated content.”
This is an opportunity for student and aspiring filmmakers. Just ask Brian Lazzaro, who won $5,000 from travel website www. Vegas.com.
The Venice, CA man was among 80 entrants in a competition open to the public seeking a commercial to promote the city.
The winner, Brian Lazzaro, also won the opportunity to re-shoot his spot with a professional crew and budget, or possibly a new one. The commercial will be then rolled out nationally in 2008 for broadcast television.
A professional videographer and graduate of NYU Film School, Lazzaro has worked in music video production in Los Angeles for the past three years.
Apprenticing with a renowned music video director Samuel Bayer (“Has Anybody Seen My Baby,” The Rolling Stones; “Wake Me Up When September Ends,” Green Day; “The Black Parade,” My Chemical Romance; “No Rain,” Blind Melon; “What Goes Around Comes Around,” Justin Timberlake), Lazzaro’s 15 credits include clips for such indie favorite bands as Rilo Kiley, Good Charlotte and Deftones. He’s currently employed at Los Angeles music label/video production company Candor Entertainment, a collective of musicians and filmmakers.
Candor’s president stars in the winning video. “When I e-mailed him my idea, he e-mailed me back from his Blackberry, ‘Let’s do it,’” Lazzaro tells StudentFilmmakers.
Lazzaro noted that his video, for which he used a wide-angle adaptor, has an intended low-budget, documentary- like look. The video is set in the day-time instead of a more obvious Las Vegas night- time vignette.
Lazzaro’s “The All Nighter” is set in California, where a man walks down the street carrying a cocktail and a stripper’s dancing pole, which accounted for $195 of the $300 budget. People on the street gawk and stare. A beautiful woman (played by actress Brittney Kara, who was the lead in a music video for Buckcherry called, “Crazy Bitch”) walks towards him and he approaches her. He plants the pole on the sidewalk and through his body language, he encourages the woman to dance for him.
When she shoots him down, the Vegas.com arrow appears on screen with the tagline, “Increase your odds.”
Lazzaro, who owns a Panasonic HVX200 HD camera, says that an actor friend urged him to enter the Vegas contest. He spent $300 on the producing the spot, which was shot in an afternoon, stored on fire-store hard drives and edited on Apple’s Final Cut in the next couple of days.
Four other finalists were also flown in from different parts of the country to present their commercials at a June 14 party co-hosted by the CineVegas Film Festival at the Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas. The 9th Annual CineVegas Film Festival was held June 6-16, 2007 at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas.
Celebrity judges included Oscar winner Dennis Hopper, who serves as the festival’s chairman of its Creative Advisory Board.
“It’ll be my first non-spec work that’s not a music video,” Lazzaro says of the forthcoming Vegas.com production.
He adds he will be meeting with Vegas. com staff in the coming months to figure out whether he will get to produce either a new spot or remake this one.
The contest marked the first time that Vegas.com turned to consumer-generated content for advertising ideas.
“We were impressed with the level of professionalism and creativity from the entries we received,” said Howard Lefkowitz, Vegas.com president, in a statement. “Many companies who have run contests to solicit ideas from the public have been unsatisfied with the results. By teaming up with CineVegas, we reached an extremely talented pool of contestants,” he added.
Vegas.com has received accolades and numerous awards for its advertising
campaigns. Most recently, Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International (HSMAI) presented Vegas.com with the 2007 Best Advertising Series Award.
Past awards include the Travel Industry Association’s Odyssey Award for Best Advertising in 2004 and 2006.
StudentFilmmakers Magazine: What led you to the path of directing music videos, and your apprenticeship under Samuel Bayer?
Brian Lazzaro: I was a location scout in New York. Occasionally, production managers would hire me to be a director’s assistant for a week. I worked on a [commercial] with Sam in New York. He was looking for an assistant in LA at the time, liked working with me, and asked me to move to LA to be his assistant. I worked for Sam for almost three years; I would shoot videos as they came up when I had time, and build my reel. I started shooting videos for the company we were with. And I worked from there to a new company where I do videos, and hopefully commercials soon.
StudentFilmmakers Magazine: What drew you to working more with music videos, as opposed to short films?
Brian Lazzaro: Sam was one of the pioneers of music video. I hadn’t seen “Smells Like Teen Spirit” because I didn’t grow up with MTV, but after working with Sam, I had certainly seen the major impact of all the songs that I knew – he did Cranberries, he did Rolling Stones, he did Smashing Pumpkins. He did so many huge videos in the 90’s. So, Sam was definitely instrumental, and not only inspired me to do it, but also, really, Sam’s word to a label was like, ‘Let Brian direct this video,’ and they were like, ‘Sure.’ So he opened a lot of doors for me, definitely.
StudentFilmmakers Magazine: How would you compare your work on this commercial with your work and the techniques you use when making music videos?
Brian Lazzaro: Some videos I’ve done as a one- man crew, documentary style. But I’ve done other videos, where I’ve had bigger budgets. I think ‘user-generated content’ is what people are looking for. So, I knew [the commercial] could look rough around the edges, and as long as the idea was funny, they would be okay with it.
StudentFilmmakers Magazine: How did you come up with the concept for the commercial?
Brian Lazzaro: I started to think, what’s iconic about Vegas? Where people go and don’t want to talk about? And it’s strip clubs. And so, I was thinking, what single thing could you do that could just say it all in one shot? Stripper pole.
StudentFilmmakers Magazine: Did you use storyboards?
Brian Lazzaro: I did some sketches so I could show Chris and the actress where they would be walking. Because we didn’t have a permit, and we didn’t really need one because we didn’t really have any equipment. It’s just Chris walking down the street with a pole over his shoulder; it’s not really illegal. But I still wanted it to be low profile filming, so [I told them], ‘I’m just going to be across the street, you guys kind of just walk like this.’
I drew a little sketch and floor plan on how they should do it, so that I could shoot it documentary style from the other side of the street. I did have one person holding the pole upright at one point because it kept falling.
StudentFilmmakers Magazine: Tell us about the background music.
Brian Lazzaro: My friend manages a band called the Wild Birds. They let me use the song.
StudentFilmmakers Magazine: What advice would you share with new directors and filmmakers?
Brian Lazzaro: I hate tripods. I remember when I was going to film school, all my stuff was very static, because you’re encouraged to go shot by shot instead of feeling it out. There’s no substitute for good camera work, but I encourage people to kind of just go and have fun and be free form. …And people are really going to respond more to good content and acting, not really wasting your money on production value because if the writing’s crap, it’s just going to be crap.
Larry Jaffee is a New York-based freelance writer specializing in the entertainment and media business. His writing has been published by The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Hollywood Reporter, Billboard, among numerous other publications.
