This was another ad we provided animation for Dale Pon Advertising. Dale Pon was the master brander of radio stations and KMPC had recently become the purveyor of standard music. Which stars did he choose to represent this golden age? Who better than Tony Bennett, Johnny Mathis, Henry Mancini and Jack Jones! Buzzco was asked to provide the non-human stars!
These were incredibly fun shoots to be on the set! First we went to LA to shoot the incredible Johnny Mathis (so sweet!), Henry Mancini and Jack Jones. They performed for a few hours with an incredibly long play list. Dale would often make multiple versions of a commercial to mix up the campaign to keep people waiting for the next! And each song was beautiful. After we wrapped, Dale whispered something to Johnny Mathis. Dale's assistant was a very young Maria Raisis, and he had asked Mathis to sing "Maria"-- which he crooned, singing directly to a very emotional Maria.
We shot Tony Bennett in New York City. It was difficult for him to imagine how to pull the imaginary stars from the sky and blow them to camera. I went over the choreography with him a few times, and he turned to me and asked if we were related? I thought probably not, but he insisted that we had the same profile!
The animating stars was tricky-- they were inked on cels, then shot as kodaliths with bottom lights--we had to do camera tests to consider the exposure of the bleeds, and married on video with the live action.
From memory:
Agency: Dale Pon Advertising
Producer and Director: Dale Pon
Photographer: Stephen Lighthill
Assistant: Maria Raisis
Animation:
Buzzco Associates, inc
Directors: Candy Kugel and Vincent Cafarelli
Animation: Vincent Cafarelli
Producer: Marilyn Kraemer