Talking Top Gun with Joe Pytka

This week sees the release of the new issue of shots, issue 129, the Cannes Special. To celebrate that fact we will be offering up some choice cuts from the magazine to whet your appetite, starting with our interview with director and Ad Icon, Joe Pytka.  Below is an excerpt from Simon Wakelin's Q&A with Pytka, covering his career in both advertising and features.

Entering Pytka’s stunning Frank Lloyd Wright Jr production office in West Hollywood I couldn’t help but wonder if the stories of a moody, cantankerous director were actually true; if one of the most prolific ad men of our time would simply chew me up and spit me out. As I met Pytka and shook his hand I realised his physique actually fit the bill – a burly man standing 6’5” tall, his build as formidable as his legendary work.

But this icon couldn’t have been more pleasurable company, soon unveiling his genuine love and enthusiasm for both commercials and film. Here the Pittsburg native opens up about advertising, film, and perfecting the art of commercial persuasion. 

How did you get your start?

I started as a documentary filmmaker and love handheld cameras. I was inspired by the likes of Godard. He helped develop the Aaton because he wanted to have a camera in his glove compartment so that he could shoot reality on the fly. 

How would you describe your directing style?

I just go with the flow, go with the material. I’ve been privileged to work with a bunch of brilliant advertising people right from the very beginning of my career. It’s more a reflection on the concepts than my own signature style. My contribution is just getting it done. If you get a strong guideline with impeccable descriptions, it’s really difficult to fuck it up.

How has the business changed since you began directing?

Advertising has changed tremendously. When I started out, ad agencies were very entrepreneurial, while now they have become corporate. There was a famous adman called Carl Ally. His philosophy was to only work on the accounts that he liked, then shape advertising to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. That’s an anomaly today. Those days have gone. Now you have to serve a corporate master. You used to have relationships with key people. Now you talk to numerous people at different levels.

What dictates good work?

The work that I think is my best always has some commonality between the agency and the client on the highest level. When Hal Riney wrote the Bartles & Jaymes wine cooler copy, he spoke directly to Ernest Gallo about it. He was the only guy who liked it, so he went with it.

Which makes me think of Wieden + Kennedy. We’d get together over jobs for Nike and talk all night because we never wanted anything to look like a commercial. Working with Phil Dusenberry at BBDO was also remarkable. BBDO back then meant “Bring it Back and Do it Over” with Phil. It needed to be right. One of his major clients was Pepsi. He put the entertainment value into the brand, brought in celebrities like Lionel Richie, Don Johnson, Michael J. Fox, Michael Jackson and Madonna. He created commercials that got into the public’s consciousness. Commercials rarely do that anymore. Now it’s so corporate there’s a definite fear factor.

You’ve made two feature films to date. Do you ever consider making more?

You are correct. One was Let it Ride with Richard Dreyfuss, a flop financially but as funny as shit. The other one was Space Jam, basically a long commercial that made over six billion dollars worldwide. As for another film? I am always working on scripts. I have just not been able to get to the point where I can do what I want to do, the way I want to do it. That’s the hardest part. I don’t want to be in the same situation as I’ve been in the last couple of times. It’s two years of your life on a film. It’s like a huge boulder crushing down on you.

How was the experience directing Space Jam? 

Fighting battles on that movie was not a pleasant experience. The film was based on a commercial I shot with Jim Riswold over at Wieden + Kennedy. We put Bugs Bunny and Michael Jordan together when they were icons, then fought with Warner Bros to redo the storyboards to change the feeling for the animation. It took six months before we went ahead and shot it. Then WB realised they had a great movie idea on their hands.

But it was a brutal, draining shoot. It was only 10 weeks but with lots of post. There were always issues with the lighting, green screen, animation, and stuff like that. It was a real pain in the ass, plus we’d have to write scenes on set and have the animator take a key frame and animate over it to make sure everything was working correctly before we moved on.

So you were writing the script during the filming?

Yes. I was frustrated because writers in Hollywood do not do anything unless it’s for money. So we’d have a writer’s meeting and discuss problems with a given scene and writers would come up with the exact number of words to fix the scene because they get paid a huge amount of money for each goddamn rewrite. I was so frustrated I’d write the damn stuff myself with Jim Riswold and a few others. I just didn’t want to sit down with that Hollywood bullshit. It’s not that I’m saying the movie is so damn profound; rather we needed more character development to flesh out Michael’s life away from basketball.

As you mentioned, it was a colossal success. Was that at all surprising?

I remember being truly shocked by the merchandising figures. The movie, DVD, cassettes and soundtrack collected about a billion dollars alone, while merchandising for Warner Bros stores during the Christmas period that year collected yet another billion dollars. It was a huge financial hit. 

What kinds of films inspire you?

I am a fan of the 80s movies. Top Gun is terrible, really horrible – but I like it for all the wrong reasons. The same with Point Break. It’s amazing how Kathryn Bigelow tunes into that testosterone level, all those macho moments. There are so many films that inspire me. I recently saw Burn After Reading. Brad Pitt is hysterical. It’s one of the funniest movies you’ll ever see. I also like intensely personal movies like The White Ribbon. It illustrates how a film should grab you by the throat and not let you go until it’s done.

Bad movies can also be good. Even a bad vintage of a great wine is interesting. Scorsese’s movies are all like that, even his maligned films have those Scorsese moments. They are worth watching simply because of that. Sadly, most popular filmmakers today don’t have any of these moments at all.

The Coen Brothers’ A Serious Man is shocking and funny. So damn cynical. You don’t know any of the actors in the film. I’ve watched it 15 times. It’s impeccable and courageous filmmaking. That kind of work is inspiring to me. 

What about directors?

I’ve mentioned Scorsese. Ridley and Tony Scott are good friends. Ridley’s work is very elegant like those Victorian paintings from the turn of the century. His sense of lighting and atmosphere is fabulous. He can take the slightest idea and turn it into something special.

I’d actually like to see more films made in the vein of John Cassavettes. I love A Woman Under the Influence. You get blown away and overwhelmed by the emotions on the screen. Incredible. You watch it and you don’t need to see another film for at least a month.

I had the rights for three scripts on the musician Charlie Parker. Richard Pryor was attached – but he chickened out. So we gave up because we couldn’t get it made without him. Clint Eastwood got hold of one of the scripts called Bird and he made the movie. I saw it. It was funny. Everything we hated in the script was in the film. But he is a very disciplined filmmaker and he knows how to tell a story. 

With all the delivery platforms and the splintering of media today in advertising, how do clients successfully reach their demographic?

Two words: Super Bowl. That’s over 100 million viewers right there.

I think the digital world is still confusing. First of all, commercials on the internet irritate the hell out of me. When I plug into, say, the NYT, you have to wait to skip the damn ads. The internet is a free medium, but when you see things like this intruding in your life for no good reason, it’s annoying. With television it is different because there is an expectation for commercials… 

So what do you think should be done?

I am no messiah but the thing that’s interesting about television is that everyone will soon have a flat screen HD set. There could be a more traditional way to reach consumers. Think about it.

I remember Ridley and Tony Scott’s work when I was a documentary filmmaker. Someone showed me their reel and I said, ‘fuck me, these guys are better than any moviemaker out there’. They created incredible commercials with unbelievable production values.

But how did they get away with this in the UK? People would go to the movies half an hour before the film started just to see their commercials on the screen. It was the same with Alan Parker, Adrian Lyne and Hugh Hudson. It was an incredible time. They were so adventurous.

Why can’t we do that now with the quality and affordability of HD TV sets? Maybe this is the way to get back to making commercials that are as powerful as ever.

But it’s also the creative side of things like I mentioned previously. Let me put it this way. Sydney Lumet recently died and many lamented that he never got an Academy Award. Why didn’t he get an award for, say, Dog Day Afternoon? Because he had big competition with Rocky, Taxi Driver, Network and others. All those films are better than anything you’ve seen today, I can guarantee you. I don’t think any of the movies in the past 10 years have been worth the Academy Award. I can’t think of any. We used to have great movies that touched the public’s heart and, on the whole, none of the movies today do that. I think it’s the same with commercials. 

What about the future? Any thoughts on the next generation of commercial filmmakers?

There is so much potential, especially with the equipment. Filmmaking is easier than it has ever been. When I started out it was all about shooting a ton of 16mm film that was very, very slow. It was a struggle to make anything look good. You needed a tremendous amount of discipline and knowledge to get anything done.

Now digital makes it so easy, you can go handheld in available light. The promise for future filmmakers is fabulous because new technology is just phenomenal.