Jack Of All Trades: charlieuniformtango Handles Production And Post For Nationwide Insurance Spot

By Andrew Dowd

— 9/7/2007

Ever watched one of those “edgy,” self-consciously hip home improvement shows like “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” or “While You Were Out?” If so, then you’ll likely get a kick out of a new Internet commercial for Nationwide Insurance that pokes gentle fun at the reality TV subgenre.

In the 30-second spot, the twenty-something host of a do-it-yourself home repair show inadvertently trashes the house he’s supposed to be fixing up. A Rube Goldberg-like display of slapstick mayhem ensues as he hits a loose nail with a hammer, accidentally catapulting a bucket of paint through a window and all over a swanky bedroom set. A belated “Dude” is the scraggly carpenter’s stunned response.

The clever spot is part of Nationwide’s “Life Comes At You Fast” campaign. Several commercials have aired on television – including one starring pop-culture punch-line Kevin Federline – yet the recent home repair spot is the first one created exclusively for Internet exhibition.

It’s also the first to be handled by the brand new production department of charlieuniformtango (Dallas), and one of a half-dozen spots helmed by their new go-to wunderkind, Jeremy Bartel.

“Right off the bat, we agreed that it had to be modern,” says Bartel of the spot, which went online in June. “It’s the real cool young guy who just happens to be a carpenter. As opposed to the Bob Villa sort of thing, which is a bit outdated.”

Bartel’s arrival at Charlie Tango didn’t just coincide with the creation of the company’s production branch – the former actually expedited the latter.

The 22-year-old filmmaker moved from Tulsa, Okla. to Dallas late last year looking for work. He didn’t expect to find it at Charlie Tango. “They were only doing post-production at that point,” he says. “So at first, I didn’t take a whole lot of interest.”

Bartel set up an interview anyway, just to “see the place and survey my options.” What he found was a company looking to expand its boundaries. “They were planning on getting into production and I was searching for production jobs,” says Bartel. “It was like both our needs were met at once.”

Since joining the Charlie Tango team, Bartel has been named Creative Director of the production branch and has worked on seven different campaigns. So when TM Advertising came calling with its new Nationwide spot, there was little question who would be directing.

“We had only two weeks to prepare,” says Bartel, who mapped out the one-take concept with TM’s Hal Dantzler and Bob Brihn. “A lot of decisions had to be made the day of shooting.”

Bartel assembled his crew, which included Director of Photography Allan Westbrook and longtime collaborator John Mitchell on sound. Sam Williamson was cast as the young host and a one-story house was selected as the shooting location.

After five days of preproduction – which included dressing up a living room to look like a bedroom, and figuring out the mechanics of the “accidental” set destruction – Bartel and his crew spent one 14-hour day getting that single, perfect take.

“We had to use digital effects for the paint can,” the director admits. “Of the three dozen times we really launched that thing, the trajectory was right maybe twice.”

Though it was shot for the Internet, there’s little distinguishing the finished spot from its made-for-television predecessors. That’s because, as Bartel points out, the process is nearly identical.

“When you’re doing an Internet spot, it’s treated the same as if you were making one for national television,” he says. “It’s the same crew, the same amount of people there. You have the same time and length restrictions. The only real difference is the money involved, which is much less.”

Bartel is quick to stress the growing significance of advertising online. “That’s the uphill battle we’re fighting with clients right now,” he says. “You have to communicate that the Internet is just as important a medium as television, even more so with a certain generation.”

As a demonstration of his point, Bartel’s spot speaks volumes—it’s funny, accessible and broadcast-ready. It’s also, like the other spots he’s shot for Charlie Tango, creating new production opportunities for the growing company. Next up for Bartel and his team? A 10-minute documentary for Susan G. Komen’s The Cure.

“The projects we’ve worked on this past year have been great learning experiences,” says Bartel. “It’s really paying off for everyone involved.”