Freedman & Rowland on Giving HSBC a Lift.

Last week saw the release of Grey London's new HSBC spot, The Lift. The 90 second film [below], spans 40 years of one man's life and is set, pretty much entirely, in a lift.

Grey London creative director, Nick Rowland, and the spot's director, Independent's Gary Freedman [pictured above], here give us some insight into how the spot was realised, the difficulties in spanning such a long period in a short time, and the importance of subtle make-up.  

Tell us a bit about the idea behind the campaign.

Rowland: It’s Never just Business is a fresh look at the business world. It’s a shift away from the pin stripes, percentage points and money that this category operates in. Fundamentally it’s about people. Their hopes, ambitions, the ups and downs that all of us in the business world go through.

What was the brief you got from the agency and did you immediately know how you wanted to approach it?

Freedman: I was taken with the idea immediately. The story of a man’s relationship with his business over 40 years, all told within the confines of a lift - it was compelling right away. And a great challenge to work within such specific boundary. I knew how I wanted to approach it as soon as I read it; that it should be driven by character and story (rather than any tricky effects or transitions).

How important was the casting of this spot and where did you find the main actor?

Freedman: You have to feel empathy with the lead character. The viewer has to understand his progress and care what happens to him. He changes through the 40 year period we cover - he strives for success, gets it, loses it, is humbled and then comes back changed and stronger than ever.

We see his personal life as well as his work life. It is a huge scope. So for an actor, it is more like a film than a commercial. And so, of course, casting was really the critical element of the whole job.

It is a real performance piece - he shows every side of his personality. There are light and dark moments. But through it all, you have to come out liking him. And that is inherent I think with the actor we chose (Stephane Coulon).

We cast in the UK, France and Italy. There were strong contenders in each but we ended up picking Stephane who came from Paris. He had so much natural charm and warmth - but I don’t think any of us appreciated when we cast him just how good an actor he really is. He made the spot, in my opinion. 

What was the shooting process like, with so many actors and, seemingly, such a small amount of space to work in?

Freedman: We built sets for all five lifts. So the space was less confined than it appears. We could remove walls etc. And we would light from above. The challenge with this was more about how to dramatise moments that tell bigger life-stories that just happen to take place in a lift. And to keep the film interesting and alive without repeating ourselves.

In the end, it was always story and character that was the driver. The look of each different lift, for example, was not just about the period but the stage of the character’s journey. The first lift in the early 70s is quite low-key but by the mid-80s he’s had a lot of success and has moved to a flashy building with a gold lift!

With a ‘through-the-ages’ type of film, it can often be the make-up that distracts a viewer (i.e. it’s not very good); how much thought did you give to that and what was your approach?

Freedman: Absolutely… subtlety was key with make-up. Our make-up designer, Loz Schiavo, and I talked a lot about how and where to use prosthetics. We tested things out and agreed that less is more. You can go overboard ageing someone and it it can end up looking unnatural.

I think if you start out with the right actor who’s the right age, has the right level of natural ageing, you can do quite minimal, subtle things with hair and make-up to push him a little younger and little older for the most part.

What was the most difficult part of putting this job together?

Rowland: There were so many challenges. Travelling through 40-odd years in just a few days. Aging our cast every day. The complexities of wardrobe. The level of detail required. Working in such confined spaces with a large cast. And then the edit; making sure we showed the passage of time but allowing enough room for performance. It still amazes me how such a simple idea can have so many layers of complexity.

Freedman: For me the most difficult part of the film was how to weave other characters in and out of the narrative in a way that the audience could keep track of. We wanted it to be layered but not so complicated that you couldn’t follow.

So, I gave a lot of thought to who those key support characters are and how frequently they make appearances. The ad is really about relationships - I always took “It’s Never Just Business” to mean that. So, the personal relationships that come and go for the hero character over that forty year period are really the main thrust of the story.

And the most rewarding?

Freedman: I enjoyed the whole thing immensely. The creative process with the agency was great and it was one of those rare jobs where the idea was rock solid but the execution was allowed to evolve as we learnt things along the way.

It really did blossom through the production. But I think the most rewarding part of the job was working with Stephane (the lead actor) in developing a character. It’s very unusual with a commercial that you get stretch your legs like that and I loved it.

Rowland: I played the finished ad to a friend. She cried. That’ll do me.