We talked to the director about his professional career: film, advertising, what inspires him and how to make a good advert.
You have worked in fiction (both in films and series) and in advertising. What do you think advertising can bring to fiction and vice versa?
They are different media, but advertising has a conciseness that requires precision and specificity in storytelling within a few seconds. This can be useful for film-making. On the other hand, cinema has more depth and diversity in character development that advertising could learn from, as advertising characters seem too similar.
What would you say is the key to making a good advert?
I imagine it’s the same as in fiction: to elicit emotion. And by emotion I mean anything from a smile (or a laugh in the best of cases) to a tear running down your cheek. And if that emotion is directly related to the brand you are advertising, that’s when you achieve the full effect.
Javier Ruiz Caldera
What inspires you when directing and do you use a specific methodology?
Every film or commercial has its own methodology and one of the most stimulating challenges as a director is to find the best way to tell that story. So I don’t have a fixed set of rules beyond having the best possible team both in front of and behind the camera.
How do you choose which projects to participate in, and do they have to have something special that motivates you to be part of them?
Yes, I have turned down big, interesting projects because I didn’t see what I could contribute to them. I have to feel a connection with the script, to believe that I can make it special, that it resonates with what can be called “my sensibility” without sounding pretentious.
What would you say to young people who want to be part of the audiovisual world? Where would you start if you had to enter the industry again?
The truth is that I learnt a lot in my beginnings as an advertising director. When I was faced with my first feature film I had already been shooting commercials for a few years. If they say that a writer should get rid of his first thousand pages of “crap” as soon as possible, the same thing usually happens with a director. The more you shoot the better, on iPhone, whatever. I was lucky enough to do it while getting paid thanks to advertising.
