Here we go again.
I’m doing a Lincoln commercial with Dwyane Wade. He just won an NBA Championship but isn’t that well known in the age of Shaq and Kobe. The client comment is reminiscent of the bullshit I put up with a few years earlier in a Dodge Truck shoot where the client said that ‘black guys don’t drive pickups.’ In this idea, Wade is returning to a decrepit basketball court where he once played to refurbish it. He has a new hoop and basketballs in the back of the wagon.
I work with the creatives to take it to a higher level making the Lincoln into a ‘magic bus.’ We come to an agreement and discuss it in a pre pro but after the meeting an account exec goes to another phone and stabs us in the back by convincing the client to go back to the original idea.
That was Y&R. The account department rules, not the creatives.
So, I’ll do my best with the original idea but I ain’t usin’ no fuckin’ white coach.
I film the stuff with the white coach in a short time. Then I dismiss him. He knows there’s somethin’ goin’ on, but that’s his problem. As soon as he is gone, I get Randy, my AD, to change wardrobe. I don’t remember if Randy and I discussed this, but Randy has an epic look and fits the part perfectly. D. Wade has arrived, and no one wants to make an issue of this right now.
I finish the spot the right way and that’s how it runs.