Advertising Age September 7, 1987 ARKIN IS COMING! BYLINE: By Sharon Edelson Veteran actor and director Alan Arkin finds no Catch 22 in commercials work. Telephone receiver in hand, Filofax sprawled open before him, Alan Arkin sits at a small table in a third floor office of Reed & Melsky Casting. "Just two more calls before lunch," he begs, clearly enjoying the business of doing business. Across the room, Arkin's 19-year-old son Tony recalls the image of his father in younger days, as Yossarian in "Catch-22." During his long career, Arkin has embraced many roles. As a young actor, he cut his comedic teeth with the first company of Chicago's Second City, then went on to give memorable performances in "The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming," and "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter," for which he received Oscar nominations; "Wait Until Dark," "The Last of the Red Hot Lovers," and "Catch-22," to name a few. On TV Arkin has starred in "The Defection of Simas Kudirka," "A Matter of Principle," and "Escape From Sobibor." Arkin has been directing almost as long as he's been acting. His first directing job was in 1967, when he took over a struggling play called "Eh?" Since then, his credits have been expanded to include Jules Feiffer's "Little Murders," "The White House Murder Case" off-Broadway and "The Sunshine Boys" on Broadway. Arkin went on to direct the film version of "Little Murders" as well as "Fire Sale." For television he directed Carol Burnett in "Twigs" and the pilot of "Fay." Recently Arkin sought out new terrain when he directed his first commercial -- for Miller Lite -- through Levinson Israelson Bell. Over lunch at Le Palmier, he discussed his views on acting, directing, and his improbable entrance into the world of advertising. Q: An obvious question. You've directed, and continue to get offers to direct features, plays and television. Why have you now chosen commercials? A: It was never anything in my wildest dreams that I even considered for two minutes, but then, most of the things I've done have in my career have not been anything I wanted to consider in my wildest dreams. The only thing I ever really started out wanting to do was act. With this, my agent called me about four months ago and asked me if I wanted to direct a commercial. I said, 'What for?' He told me what it paid. My jaw dropped to my knees. Q: So it was strictly the money that attracted you? A: At first I thought I would just be in it for the ride, for the bread, and then say goodbye to everybody. But I found myself having a very good time at the first meeting with the agency. To my delight and surprise I felt very untrammeled, creatively. I felt I could do what I wanted to. All of this was completely unexpected. I thought it would be a situation where the director would be a yes-man for about 500 people who had very specific ideas. Q: What are your views on advertising as a creative medium? A: I don't think I'm any different than anybody else. Like most people, I loathe 99% of advertising, until something comes along and delights me. Every once in a while there's an ad that comes along that is delightful and you find yourself thanking the company for making you smile or laugh. Q: When you're offered a script, what are your criteria in deciding whether to bid on it or pass on it? A: With all the scripts I've been given, if they don't excite me in some way, if they don't entertain me, don't make me laugh, I don't want to do them. I have no real interest in selling products. I can't, I'm not a salesman. I do have a great interest in making an audience enjoy what they're looking at. Q: It's been a long time since you directed your last feature. Were you able to use the visual techniques you learned on features in commercials? A: It's true, I haven't directed a feature in eight years. I think I have a lot of abilities as a film director, but pushing the camera around isn't one of them. I've always relied heavily on the cinematographer, and directing commercials has given me a chance to learn more about that aspect of the business that I love so much. I think already I've gotten a little bit of understanding of what the camera can do, which I wasn't really comfortable with before. Q: You said you always relied heavily on the cinematographer when making a film. What about the DP? What should the role of the DP be in a commercial production? A: What a director should do, even if a DP has a better eye than the director, is put his better eye into a concept that encompasses more than just the visual, the entire scene. The DP can very often just have a good sense of what that shot will bring to the whole, but not necessarily what the whole is that you're trying to go for. Q: Where did you learn about design? Where did you get your sense of aesthetics? A: My father was an art teacher. One of my happiest memories, which I forgot until two days ago, was sitting with him in the subway and looking at the ads. He'd ask me which ones were well designed, and which weren't, and I'd say, 'I don't know.' Then he'd say, 'Which ones do you like to look at and which ones do you not like to look at?' It always turned out that the ones I liked had a nice design aspect to them. There was some kind of balance to them. My father just taught me about balance in the visual arts in that way. Q: You've worked with some of the greatest directors. What did they teach you about performance and directing? A: From Norman Jewison, I learned that you can love your actors and be delighted by them all the time and get better work from them. I learned from Arthur Hiller that you can be an impeccable gentleman on the set and get good work out of everybody. That you don't have to know all the answers. Arthur never pretended to know all the answers. But he created a climate where people felt they could contribute the answer. Herb Ross showed me how to take the most miniscule of ideas somebody brings to you seriously. I haven't learned that enough though. I've still got a long way to go on that. Mike Nichols taught me the extraordinary importance of cinematography. Just how important it is. No matter how good the acting is, if you don't have a good frame, a good atmosphere, it can very often cheapen everything. Q: You've been called an actor's director. Creatives who've worked with you on commercials say that actors really respond to you. How important is coming into directing from an acting background? A: I'm not capable of teaching actors how to sell. When I look at casting reels and I see hundreds of actors that are selling to me, they immediately make me angry and they turn me off. I want an actor to play a character. That's what they're hired to do. The best commercials you see are somebody coming on playing a character. If I have a forte, it's being able to get behavior out of actors, and that means being able to make something comprehensible for them. Once something's comprehensible to an actor, it becomes immediately interesting. If they don't know what they're doing, it becomes general and bizarre. The minute they become interesting, you can push them into memorable. But it's got to be in that progression. Then they come out feeling not just like they made a lot of money is a few days, but that they had a creative experience. Q: Do you find there is a sense of emotional relief in directing a commercial, as opposed to directing recting plays and features? A: Yes, it's wonderful. A play is not so terrible, but if you're directing a movie, and you find out on the second day that someone's a drunk, or is going to have a temper tantrum, you're faced with six months of daily contact with somebody that not only you can't get away from, but you can't fire. In a TV series, you find out on the third week you've got seven years of looking at somebody, you're locked into a relationship you can't get out of. In commercials, if you find out you don't get along with someone on the second day, it's OK, because you're finished on the third day. Q: Do you like the tight production schedules in commercials work? A: In terms of preparation, it's wonderful, because I feel one of my problems is I tend to think faster than a lot of the people I work with. Which is, I guess, partly blowing my own horn. But it's a failing that I can't overcome. Being able to get my ideas out full blown and executed and finished in a matter of days is very exciting. Q: Did your experience working with Second City, constantly ad-libbing, train you to think fast? A: Yes, a lot of the earliest training I had was with Second City. I was in the first company, so I'm used to thinking on my feet quickly, and I enjoy doing it. I think I do some of my best thinking that way. Q: How did you feel when you walked on to the set of your first spot? A: It was really trial by fire. It scared the hell out of me because I was working on a 30-second spot with 20 principals. For my first spot. It's not that I haven't done that before. I've done that in features, but making it work in 30 seconds was a whole new way of thinking for me. Q: You have a great support system -- your family. I've heard you say you enjoy working with them as often as possible. Do commercials give you the opportunity for that collaboration? A: My son Tony is acting as an assistant to the director on my commercials. That's the other reason I like doing them. Tony has a much better filmic sense than I do. I'll listen to him a lot about graphics and design. One of our pastimes is keeping lists of all the actors we've worked with and had wonderful experiences with and giving them a shot at stuff. There's so much talent around, people haven't had a chance to get the kind of exposure they should, and to give them a shot at this is very, very satisfying. Q: Your son Adam also surfaced in the Miller commercial. How did he happen to get in the spot? A: As it turns out, he had been put on tape by the casting person in L.A. before I knew about it. He's got a running part on a series in L.A. and I didn't think he'd want to do it. But he's just had a new baby, and he wanted that extra exposure. When we looked at the tape, he was the best one. The client wanted him and the agency wanted him even before I said I wanted him. Q: What touches did you bring to the GTE spots? A: The GTE spots weren't funny when we got them. The agency knew they weren't. We came up with ideas for each spot that made them slightly unusual. For one spot, they had a man in a room with all this Darth Vader equipment, and the copy was, 'It's four o'clock in the morning here at GTE, and you may be asleep, but we're busy examining your phone lines.' One of the things they wanted was to loosen the image of their spokesman. So I said, why don't we keep the copy exactly the same and have him come in in his pajamas, with two days' growth of beard and his hair messed up. It's very simple, but it's a grabber. He's no longer a presenter, he's a human. Q: You've said that you enjoy directing, because it allows you to turn down acting roles. Do you still enjoy acting? A: I could live very comfortably without acting anymore. Acting is very self-focused for me and I'm happier when I'm not as self-focused. When I'm really doing good [acting] work now, I feel like I can't tell that I'm doing good work anymore. Like when I did "Joshua," which I think is one of the best things I've done in years, I felt like I was going to be fired. On the "In-Laws," I felt like I was going to be fired. It's so easy for me. An actor's got to wrap himself up in that cloak of a persona, which I used to be great at, and I can't do it anymore. I can't act anymore unless I have a feeling for what the piece is about, for what the character represents. I've turned down two features to direct in the past six weeks: A Broadway musical, and a feature to be in with a top director. I don't like what they have to say about the world, and it hurts me because obviously I would like to be doing those things. Q: What was it about those projects that troubled you? A: I either want to fall down laughing or walk out of the theater feeling good about the human condition. I find there's a lot of stuff that is nihilistic now, that is infantile. There is very little adult behavior on the screen now. By adult behavior I mean behavior that goes past momentary emotional needs. Q: Will you continue making commercials for a while? A: I don't like to make any rules for my life anymore. I love comedy, but I don't care what kind of commercial it is as long as it's something I can believe in. I can't make an effect on somebody else, unless it makes an effect on me. Then it just becomes rote and just a job. I hope I never do that.