Peter, thanks for taking the time for this. Why don’t we start with what you’re most known for: your work with celebrities. How is it to work with those big names compared to an everyday commercials actor?

Peter: “Whether it’s a good experience or not really depends on who it is. The thing about stars is that you don’t have much control like you do with a regular actor. Simple things like when they’ll turn up on set or how long they’ll be in makeup, … There can be a lot of waiting. The bigger the entourage, the bigger the wait! All the layers around them can create a kind of inertia. There are exceptions, Mads Mickelson for example, he’s very much his own person. No entourage, hugely collaborative, an all-round good guy. He’s genuinely interested in the end product; he wants it to be good. It’s not just about the money for him.

Having stars on set can add a level of stress to things. Everyone gets nervous about doing the right thing and not waste any of the celeb’s time. But generally speaking, once on the set, the big names I’ve worked with are very cool. Ultimately they just want to do good work. 

Once their feet are on set and they’re focused, things can move very quickly. Like with Benedict Cumberbatch. Whatever time it might take to get him on set, once he’s in front of the camera; magic happens! He’s super focused on getting it right, going again and again until HE is happy. It just makes you realize why he’s at the level he is.”

Do you treat the celebrities differently in terms of how you direct them on the floor?

Peter: “Generally, you kind of steer them rather than direct them. You certainly never tell them how to say anything. And if you do, you have to find a very clever way to say it. I just think that they want to be the ones who make those choices, and I respect that. When I worked with Al Pacino – which was an absolutely delightful experience – I showed him what I was trying to get to, showed him the scene, got him excited about it, and then I sort of got out of the way. It was more about helping to steer him and refine his timing. He would constantly want to finetune – almost directing himself.”

“The main thing you have to keep in mind is that you have a finite amount of time with these people, which sometimes gives a bit of pressure. If we’re running late, I can’t go into their trailer and say ‘Hurry up!’ I can give the message through to someone, and then that gets watered down through the layers of entourage to ‘It would be great to have you on set, sir.’ Laughs. I should add, though, that generally speaking: if they’re in the moment with you, they’re flexible about things and it usually works out fine.”

When those briefs land on your desk, are the celebrities already written in or do you get a say in who to cast?

Peter: “Mostly, it starts with the A-list actor already in the script, which is usually why I find myself in the mix. Famous person plus comedy,…  It gives me an advantage. At the same time, like anybody, I don’t want to get stuck in one thing. If you look at my work outside of commercials, I’d say it’s probably like 40% comedy and 60% serious.

In commercials, people are more likely to define directors by a specialty – whether it’s food, comedy, celebrities, cars, kids, or whatever – whereas in drama it’s much more about ‘What can you do’. In commercials we can get hung up in categories in a way. As an artist, your job is to have a wide lens.”

Do you feel that having an A-list actor on the project brings an added value?

Peter: “I’ve done two campaigns for MG with Benedict Cumberbatch and there’re is no doubt his presence and status brought a lot to the project. It was a good fit on many levels. A classic, cool Englishman for a classic, cool English brand. And then the end result taps effortlessly into his huge following.

Similarly, Mads Mikkelsen for Carlsberg was a perfect match. And the campaign is then shaped around his qualities, his humour, his mystery and you just know he is going to light up the screen.

On the other hand, when we lost Benedict from MG and the pandemic struck right after that, it meant we had two campaigns this year without celebs. It then became about casting, which was quite freeing. The power shifts back to the director and the actors are there to serve the script, the brand and your vision. It also meant the amount of footage we can shoot in a day increases, as you work harder with the actors and can clock up more material.”

the path to commercials

I can imagine getting the chance to work with celebrities didn’t come right away. How did you get into advertising film at all? Do you remember your first commercial?

Peter: “Yes, I do. It was 1999 and I was a documentary maker moving into TV drama. I had established myself in the 90s with a number of successful documentaries including a big 3-hour bio of the legendary comic actor Peter Sellers. This led to the office of ad legend Trevor Beattie, who was the Creative Director of TBWA at the time and who is the guy behind some of the best advertising back then, including the controversial but well-known abbreviation of fashion label French Connection into FCUK.

He was a fan of my documentaries and at some point, while we were chatting, he suddenly went: ‘Oh, by the way, have a look at this.’ He handed me a script for what was the first FCUK ad. ‘Go think about it and tell us how you’d do it.’ A week later I came back and pitched my approach, to which he responded: ‘Yeah, that sounds great!’ and then turned to his Head of TV and said: ‘Alright, now we just need to get him a production company.’

The film turned out really well and I thought ‘Wow, I’m on my way!’… and of course, I wasn’t. I didn’t make another ad for several years. Although that was partly because I was becoming immersed in the TV Drama world.”

MAKE IT WORK. UNDERSTANDING THE MACHINERY OF COMEDY.

So it sounds like your path to commercials was quite varied and you have a bit of experience in several genres. What attracts you in commercials?

Peter: “A good ad script, when it is at its best, is like a puzzle; and my job is to crack that puzzle. I love that. And I think that my broad experience across documentaries and drama has given me the tools to do really well. A script for a full-length film can be a hundred pages long, and from plotting to character arcs – you’re trying to figure out so much. It’s a lot of theoretical work. Whereas a script for a commercial is one page. You’ll know very quickly whether it works or not. I’m always drawn to the simple humorous idea.

Sometimes it’s obvious what the creatives are trying to do, even though it might not be on the page. And you can see a way to make it work and get them over the line. Good work is where the idea is crystal clear and you can almost run it in your head right away. I love being able to collaborate with creatives. They’re looking to the director to solve the puzzle and to polish it and make it fly, to bring that extra ingredient to it. That, to me, is a pleasure!”

Within commercials, you’re also known for doing well with humoristic scripts. It can be a tricky genre; do you feel the puzzle here is more difficult?

Peter: “I think within that world of puzzles, humor is the most satisfying puzzle of all. Comedy scripts by necessity have a structure that sets up something that should subsequently be paid off: it lives or dies by whether or not it’s funny. That being said, to me comedy is not about funny lines, it’s about situations and how you reveal them. It’s about truth. The darkest things can be funny. It’s about the lens you put on it. Many people think humor is difficult to pull off, but for me it feels quite natural. I think I understand the machinery of comedy; how and why something works or doesn’t work on a deep level. It’s a good USP, if you like.”

How are you experiencing the advertising film industry at the moment? What is exciting in commercials for you now?

Peter: “I’m aware that the relationships between ad agencies, clients, directors and production companies are in a state of flux. I see big clients with lots of brands, for example, are taking power back from agencies as a way to drive down costs. This can create opportunities, and also dangers. I think we need to remind ourselves what an ad is for! Whether I am making TV drama, documentaries or ads, I see them all as different forms for the same purpose: entertainment. Entertainment is about engaging and holding an audience’s attention, whether it’s for 90 minutes or 90 seconds.

Right now, for me, the challenge lies in getting good work done that successfully manoeuvres through research-heavy processes that are so focused on graphs, charts and measures of engagement. You can’t create entertainment out of data, focus groups and charts. And yet I now see ads being evolved in the form of sophisticated moving storyboards that are tested and retested to a forensic degree to try and work out the perfect mix. It’s a self-defeating way of trying to create to a good piece of work. Good work is about alchemy, good scripts, great casting, etc. It’s about trusting the creative process and trusting the creative team from writer through director to editor and so on. We have lost sight of that in a way, but things change. Right now, with so much entertainment in the form of streaming, which excludes ads, there’s a real challenge ahead for advertisers. Yet that also creates opportunities.

Those with the money and power to buy the slots on tv feel they have the power as well to dictate what is in those slots, and I understand that rationale, but it doesn’t make sense. Not enough people are challenging that at the moment. There’s a lot of fear. And the pandemic is adding another layer to that fear as well.

That said, I’d love to see more creative collaboration between all parties. As a director, one has to pitch something from scratch every time, instead of building on relationships or becoming part of a creative team. If you win, you’re expected to become an essential part of that creative process and yet you’re joining the party very late on.

As a final question: what have you been watching recently to keep you entertained or inspired?

Peter: “It’s interesting, ten years ago you couldn’t have talked about this with people in different countries, but these days you really can. Right now, I’m loving The Queen’s Gambit on Netflix, and I’ve also watched the new Utopia on Prime. That one I’d describe as 70% brilliant. And it’s spookily timely as the main story is all about the political aspects and power of a vaccine. It falls apart towards the end, though, I think because it is desperately trying to set up season 2.

In general, I always like to watch things that feel different, that challenge me, that I can learn from. A lot of storytelling in mainstream tv is fairly pedestrian. The search for more challenging storytelling draws me to Korean cinema. It’s a great blend of European art and American genre cinema, and at its best creates something wholly new and visceral.

So to sum up, while I love to get lost in a show, I can never completely stop watching the way it’s made.”

I guess that’s part of the deal when you work in film production. Thanks for your time, Peter.

Read our previous Talk with Maurus Vom Scheidt (Germany) here.

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