Ad Icon: Samuel Bayer

Visual artist, cinematographer and director Samuel Bayer has imprinted his vision on some of the most influential branding campaigns and music videos of our modern-day culture. A trained painter, Bayer’s career exploded after the success of his very first promo – the iconic Smells Like Teen Spirit for Nirvana. By Simon Wakelin

Back directing spots through Serial Pictures after the success of his recent feature Nightmare on Elm Street, Samuel Bayer is in the midst of prepping for his next shoot when we meet – a Bank of America job through Hill Holliday, Boston.  He is also busy showing his photography in the fine art world, opening his first solo exhibition at the esteemed Ace Gallery in Beverly Hills, California.

Entitled Diptychs and Triptychs, the exhibit features a collection of monumental female portraits standing 14 feet tall, each trisected into three equal parts to form a fascinating fragmentation of female beauty.

The work’s division of the female form recalls classical sculpture in the vein of Venus de Milo – modern women naked and devoid of glamorous trapping to unveil their timeless goddess form. Five years in the making, Bayer photographed more than 100 women on a large-format camera to garner the 18 portraits currently on display. The show has already received critical acclaim, as the images are an antidote to modern culture’s tendency for dissecting and scrutinising women based purely on superficial qualities:

“The first thing to go were the clichés – porn silicone actresses, bimbo strippers, and women used to taking their clothes off,” explains Bayer on adjusting his femme cast. “I treated the project like casting on a film, looking for a certain type of face, a vulnerability, or an arrogance.”

It comes as no surprise that Bayer’s work continues to impress. A graduate from Manhattan’s renowned School of Visual Arts, his success began in the most unlikely of circumstances – as a dead broke and somewhat disillusioned artist living in LA. It was while taking an influential friend from Geffen Records to lunch one day that Bayer got more than he bargained for.

“I explained that I’d just spent my last dime on her lunch and needed a job,” he reveals. “The very next day I received a tape of a Nirvana song, asking if I’d like to direct it. Getting that gig was literally an act of God.”

With little time to prep, Bayer searched for a cinematographer but found none suitable to translate his vision. On instinct he decided to lens the work himself, and in doing so successfully created a dramatic, painterly video with themes recalling the work of Baroque artists such as Caravaggio and Velázquez.

“A mix of naivety, anger and ambition led me to make that decision,” recalls Bayer. “I just didn’t want to rely on someone else to create my vision. No other cinematographer would have made it look so raw, so gritty. It was very different from the music videos of the day.”

Bayer also reveals that his relationship with Cobain became strained when he decided not to perform.

“Kurt and I didn’t get along at all and he refused to sing,” says Bayer. “Meanwhile I’m shooting around him, focusing on the cheerleaders, the devoted fans and capturing the atmosphere until Kurt finally gave me a performance.”

Cobain was full of rage at this point, lip-synching the song as Bayer filmed:

“I told Kurt not to come too close to the camera but of course he did,” laughs Bayer. “But those takes were full of such venom that it’s one of the best performances I’ve ever shot. When he puts his face into the camera at the end of the video he’s totally fucking with me – but it worked beautifully.”

Directing and DPing was an insightful experience for Bayer who, to this day, shoots all his own material.

“I realised what a powerful tool I had in my hands,” he explains. “You are connected to the image like nobody else. I seek accidents and try to capture them as they happen. I dream about haphazard moments because they mean everything to me. What my camera does is an integral part of my directing style.”

While Bayer appreciates modern lenses with amazing optics, he also shoots with glass that creates a more organic look whenever possible.

“I feel that there is a beauty to imperfection,” he says. “Panavision has developed a special set of lenses for me that emulate the feeling of film from the 1930s that I adore. The glass creates a beautiful, slightly fractured image because each lens isn’t sharp enough to hold everything in focus.

“But I am no Luddite,” he continues. “Those that bemoan digital remind me how Elvis was welcomed – a free spirit gyrating and singing rhythm and blues on The Ed Sullivan Show scolded by parents saying he signified the fall of Western civilisation.

“But Elvis was the beginning of a musical revolution. When it comes to technological revolution, you lose a lot of things along the way, but gain something in exchange. I am confident using digital because I was trained as an artist, taught colour theory and composition so can make my images look exactly the way I want them to.

“The problem is that the mystery of film goes out the window,” he feels. “It’s less organic, less subtle, less accidental – but you just have to find the power in the tool. At first it fucked me up not hearing that mag of film running through the camera. I’d flip a switch and wonder, ‘is it rolling?’

“I believe the magic of film also played a role in its downfall. You are out there with 20 rolls of precious nitrate ready to have it shipped via special airplane from the deepest, darkest jungles of Africa just to get it processed. So digital is liberating in so many ways.”

The early success of Smells Like Teen Spirit led to Bayer shooting a plethora of influential music videos for talented artists including The Rolling Stones, John Lee Hooker, Marilyn Manson, Metallica, The Cranberries, Aerosmith and Smashing Pumpkins. Then advertising came knocking at his door.

“Advertising in the 90s started looking at MTV for influences,” he says of finding his footing in adland. “I was really lucky to be in the right place at the right time.” 

A bevy of commercial work for Coke, Pepsi, Nissan, Lexus, Mountain Dew, Packard Bell and others followed. Ads of note include If You Let Me Play for Nike through Wieden+Kennedy – a spot revealing a subtler edge on Bayer’s palette, featuring a montage of girls expressing their desire to play sports, notable at the time for its departure from talking-sportsman spots.

“I remember casting sessions full of horribly precocious children and their stage parents,” says Bayer. “I turned to the agency at one point and said ‘Why not use real kids?’ My gut told me it was the right move. We did and it made all the difference. It made the spot look fresh, human, and very real.”

The commercial went on to collect an AICP Award for Best Direction, cementing Bayer’s status as a director capturing the essence of a brand’s identity. His love of shooting real people also continues to this day:

“They don’t go through rehearsed behaviour to appear ‘real’ on camera,” he outlines. “Always work with the best actors possible when you need them – but if it’s a role that requires a certain look, some warmth, a gesture or just a smile then work with real people. Don’t be afraid of it.”

Showstopper for Mountain Dew is yet another gem exemplifying a daring, irreverent and exhilarating streak that cuts a fierce trail through Bayer’s body of work.

It’s an entertaining, high-octane Busby Berkeley-inspired ad with X-Games athletes performing circus-style stunts amid highly rhythmic ‘Techno Bugsy’ music. The spot successfully attracted a diverse audience for PepsiCo beyond Mountain Dew’s regular epicenter of young teenage males, an audience taking a collective gulp of Mountain Dew’s message – that to ‘Do the Dew’ meant to experience a thrill-seeking, adventurous lifestyle beyond the product’s thirst-quenching benefits.

“That was one from a golden age in advertising and I was lucky to be a part of it,” says Bayer on the time period. “The 90s was amazing. I’d make a music video with The Rolling Stones one day, then blow shit up on a commercial the next. I used to look at MTV and advertising, and see the best and the brightest create images that were better on TV than at the movies.”

Fast-forward to more recent Bayer fare and powerful branding messages still spring to mind, specifically his recent two-minute Super Bowl spot Born of Fire for Chrysler featuring Grammy Award-winning rapper Eminem.

Born of Fire takes us around Detroit, seen in its decline after the current American recession. Stunning vistas of the city’s bleak landscape fill the screen as we tour the Motor City seated in a pristine Chrysler 200 – until Michigan native Eminem exits the vehicle to step inside Detroit’s ornate Fox Theatre. Inside, a gospel choir is practicing on stage. They stop singing as Eminem paces toward them, ending centre stage to address us directly in-camera saying, “This is Motor City. This is what we do.”

The inspired work received multiple awards, including an Emmy and a Cannes gold Lion, and it brought Bayer back into advertising after what he says was a difficult time shooting his first feature, the aforementioned remake of Nightmare on Elm Street.

“That film changed me,” he says. “It made me come back to advertising with a fresh perspective. I appreciate this business like never before. We who work in the ad industry are lucky to earn money and come in and out of jobs in three weeks.”

Bayer is also counting his blessings and admits to have learned from his misguided past:

“I have gone from an embittered artist to a director who wants to create something of consequence,” he states. “Looking back at my successes I am grateful because I don’t forget that I had a lot of support behind me.”

Asked what motivates him today and Bayer immediately lights up, admitting that film fires up his passion every single day. It comes as no surprise to hear that Sam Peckinpah ranks highly on his list of directorial inspirations. 

“I can watch any number of classics,” muses the cineaste. “If you want a film lesson go watch [Kurosawa’s] The Seven Samurai. It was a film influenced by [John Ford’s] The Searchers and successfully took the American Western and synthesised it with the legend of the samurai to create the first action movie. Then Peckinpah revolutionised the genre with The Wild Bunch using slow motion, grittiness and blood. To get inspired you go back to the masters who were pushing it to the limit. They understood the power of film.”

As for his infamous bad behaviour, it’s merely a thing of the past. Today he has leveled out to a fulfilling life as an artist that includes a career in commercials.

“The spectre of my bad behaviour occasionally haunts me,” he openly admits. “Once in a while people will say they hear I am difficult. Sure, back in the day I had enough drugs to kill an elephant, but today I’m middle-aged with a wife and a new baby.”

When I meet with Bayer once more it’s onset a week later, directing on the spot for Bank of America. As his crew preps for the day it’s clear they have great respect for their director. Bayer notices me watching them, guiding me aside as we eye them in prep mode:

“No director can create effective work without a stellar crew,” he says, with genuine emotion. “It’s taken me 20 years to get mine in place and I don’t ever want to fuck that up. They make what I do possible because they live, breathe and die for me. We always push things to the limit – and that’s the stuff I live for.”