Biscuit's Mike Maguire Shows IKEA There's No Place Like Gnome

Biscuit's Mike Maguire Shows IKEA There's No Place Like Gnome

Ever since IKEA urged us to 'Chuck out our chintz' in the mid-90s, non-stylish home items have been in for a rough ride with the brand. The latest piece of retro furniture to face the Swedish chop is the humble garden gnome, but, as the latest spot from Mother London goes to show, the diminutive terracotta terrors are fighting back.



'Time For Change' the music-video / branded-short from Biscuit Filmworks' Mike Maguire shows an army of gnomes battling for the back-yard of a family intent of sprucing up their lot. Shot in a magnificently menacing style, the film delights in recreating horror and action tropes with the colour palette of a kiddy-friendly pre-school show. Set to a 'Social Network'-esque rendition of Motley Crue's 'Time For Change' song, the result is a polished and gleefully fun slice of content that has already racked up a huge amount of goodwill online.

We spoke to the director of the piece, Mike Maguire, to find out how you make killers out of kitsch.

The latest Ikea spot is a terrifying short dealing with an onslaught of garden gnomes. What was the brief and did the film come from a bad gnome experience?

The agency sent me a really great introductory mini-treatment that was open to interpretation. They specified gnomes attacking a couple, but asked whether they'd be CG, would they move, would they blink, would they talk, would they always in the same place? So there were a lot of creative choices to be made, as it was still very open-ended. We had a great initial call, and by the end of the pitch they basically bought into my take (shooting practical gnomes) alongside what really got me excited- my notion that various gnomes would be exploded & captured at 10,000 frames per second.

How did you get involved in the project?

I got involved with the project through Mother London and an introduction by Biscuit UK's Orlando Wood. First off, I loved the creatives' tone in the mini-treatment. But more than that, I thought the project (as I was envisioning the execution) was in my wheelhouse. It had the potential to be absurd, it had its own brand of comedy, and it was all so surreal-basically it combined a lot of genres and styles I dig.

The gnomes are pretty expressive characters. Where did the designs come from? How many did you destroy?!

The gnomes were all custom designed for the commercial. I collaborated with my right hand man & production designer Alexis Ross, my producer Gustav Geldenhuys, and Tim & Freddy from Mother. (Of course, the local fabricator Kobus Verhoef made us all look good – as his team of sculptors were as talented as any you'd ever find.)

In total, we built over a hundred gnomes, had about a dozen or so specific gnome designs-regular gnomes, ones that were constructed to break apart when they hit a fence, those that were incredibly brittle for the explosions, and so on. We destroyed ten of the exploding gnomes, five each in two takes, and then another nine gnomes in three takes of throwing them against the fence.

I actually got to throw one of them a few times against the fence, along with Kobus & Co. Again, we were shooting at 10,000fps so it was like: "Ready, Set, THROW!" - with basically the entire crew watching, fingers crossed - hoping we'd get it.

How was the shoot? We've heard that you should never work with children or animals, would you add garden ornaments to this saying?

The shoot was awesome, a lot of fun – despite an incredibly packed schedule.

We shot in Cape Town, South Africa and the gnomes were great to work with - their performance was consistent take after take after take. All told I believe we shot 81 frames over the course of three days-it was a lot of footage. Typically in a packed :30TV spot shoot you have 20-odd frames , typically 17 cuts that end up in the edit, give or take. Here, we were shooting about 30 setups a day.

It was like shooting an overly ambitious promo. Three days in a row. Ula Pontikos, the DP, did a great job. And smoked many packs of Marlboro Lights.

Needless to say, IKEA was a great client to work with, and the trust between them and Mother London was really refreshing. Honestly, their dynamic and mutual respect made the job possible.
 

The film contains a number of horror / action tropes. Were there any movies you used as reference? Gremlins? Critters? The World of David the Gnome?!

Gremlins (because of their non-Gremlin state) conjures up a notion of things being borderline cute. We didn't want cute. One of things we pushed for was that the spot should be the right blend of comedy and horror so that the outcome was absurd and entertaining-and I'm not afraid to say it, a bit creepy. The explosions provided a sense of danger and consequence and The Mill & Ed Cheesman (at Final Cut) did an incredible job of taking the footage and turning it all into this absurd, epic, battle scene.

In terms of reference, I was inspired by a couple of movies. One which scared the bejesus outta me as a kid was "Trilogy of Terror" which featured a terrifying but hilarious scene involving a possessed voodoo doll attacking with a small but deadly knife.

Another was the absurdity of the "Black Mamba meets Copperhead" fight scene in "Kill Bill. Vol I". It was just so ridiculous (in the best sense of the word) in that they're in the midst of this all-out brawl, and yet they find the time to take a coffee break when the little girl arrives home from school, after which then the fighting resumes. I wanted to relay a similar type of absurdity.

To that end we approached the color in the same way -the spot is so bright and ironically happy, with the primary reds and blues of the gnomes, alongside blown out skies and deep-green foliage - that was also a nod to that Kill Bill scene.

The film has a dramatic rendition of Motley Crue's 'Time for Change'. How did you choose the soundtrack?

The track was chosen by Freddy and Tim from Mother. That was the first track they suggested. And in spite of it going south numerous times (from what I understand) they stuck to their guns and made it happen. We listened to several variations of the track and then chose the one done by the Budapest Orchestra.

Do you have gnomes in your garden? Are you afraid of them now?

No, my wife would never allow that.

Do you think the gnomes will be back for a revenge-led sequel?

I would love to do a sequel.

What's next on your slate?

Next out is a spot for Cadbury and another for Mitsubishi.

Posted on April 30th 2013