Robert Evans, Oliver Peoples & the commerical I WAS and WASN'T involved with.

A few months ago my friend Tatjana approached me about helping a friend of hers with this film he's shooting. Legendary producer Bob Evans was going to be featured in an ad/short movie for Oliver Peoples' eyeware. During Bob's tenure at Paramount, the studio turned out landmark films such as Barefoot in the Park, The Odd Couple, True Grit, Love Story, Harold and Maude, Serpico, The Conversation, Save the Tiger, The Great Gatsby, Rosemary's Baby, and The Godfather. He went out to produce such film as Chinatown, Marathon Man, Black Sunday, Popeye, Urban Cowboy, The Cotton Club, The Two Jakes, Sliver, Jade, The Phantom, and The Saint.

Back to the film. So, I outlined some ideas for what I thought the film should look like and emailed them to the director and left it at that. If he took any of my suggestions - great. Mind you, there was no compensation - just the possibility of working for him again (he's a photographer and owns his own company).

Here are some of my notes:

OLIVER PEOPLES/Robert Evans commercial/film

The current Oliver Peoples web campaign features a series of vignettes with men and women at play – lifestyle, slice-of-life, artsy. No dialogue. Just music.

I believe the focus of the Robert Evans film for Oliver Peoples should parallel the above – similar to the American Express ads. No dialogue. Just Robert’s VO. Music = piano, scattered notes and chords strung together pell-mell. The VO’s have nothing to do with sunglasses. However, Robert IS wearing them. The woman’s wearing them. So, in one manner of speaking, we can ALL be like Robert – and wear the sunglasses.

The VO’s would be, in effect, Robert talking to himself – sharing with the audience his philosophies on life, reflecting, asking questions, pondering. As the VO continues, the camera catches Robert in various emotional states: reflective, contemplative, joy, doubt and exhilaration. Interspersed with the VO’s and shots of Robert are shots of the Woman. She goes about her own business, perhaps glancing Robert’s way. Remember, we’re refraining from shedding any light on their relationship. Robert ponders, looks at her and ponders some more.

The entire film is shot in color – except Robert. He’s in black & white. He remains in b&w until the very end when the woman takes her foot and splashes him with a few drops of water. The water “colorizes” Robert and he delivers his final VO. The color change represents Robert contemplative state – signifying is reflective mood – b&w, and then the splash of water signifying the here and now.

At the very end, perhaps we see Robert’s signature scroll near the bottom – as if he himself is writing it out – if, in fact, Oliver Peoples wants to call attention to who he is.

OK. So that's a snippet of what I suggested to the director. Now go to the link below and watch the film: http://oliverpeoples.com/

It's a cool ad - he did a great job with it. And, he used some of my ideas - or were they his? We'll never know.