Clark’s varied background, from documentary realism to his very formal work with Peter Greenaway, meshed well with Metzner’s vision and completely supported her approach to the commercial. And since Clark came from the feature rather than the commercial production realm, he had a healthy suspicion of the process and a willingness to experiment with the form. Nevertheless, the potential downside was that Clark would assume the role of "hired hand" instead of becoming Metzner’s collaborator in the unique project. An initial meeting between Metzner and Clark quickly dispelled that notion. "I was just amazed that she’s such a collaborative type of individual," Clark says. "I sensed it on the day we got together just prior to shooting to talk about things. She wanted to show me a short, private film she had made about five years ago as an homage to Man Ray, a photographer she has tremendous admiration for. She actually had done something that was not dissimilar to what we ended up doing on the Ralph Lauren spot: replicating several well-known Man Ray photographs filmically, without dialogue or narrative, by creating very personal [interpretations of] his works. It was a fascinating and very compelling film which I really liked.
"I also admire Man Ray’s work tremendously, so that was another common denominator between us. The idea of motion picture film and stills coming together was the motif that sparked our collaboration. We knew from that moment that we were really tuned into the same way of thinking, and the frequencies got really synchronized on a common wavelength."
What emerged from that early meeting was a feeling of how to create a commercial that played like an extension of Metzner’s print magazine ad campaign work. Clark explains, "Sheila’s print work is a fantastically innovative use of various technologies, including printing processes and the use of negative. She uses Pola-Pan negative, which is a black-and-white reversal film, for her print work. That, to me, is unusual; it’s not a standard negative to use. She’s very aware of photography’s painterly qualities. Aside from capturing a moment, she art-directs the piece so that she evokes an atmosphere and sets up the elements and circumstances that will produce the results she’s looking for."
Clark’s challenge was to replicate that style in his cinematography on a short schedule. After traveling to New York to work with Metzner, he was in the city for a total of five days. Following the duo’s initial meeting, Clark spent the next two days doing the traditional tech scout and prep. He and his crew then visited Metzner’s actual still shoot and documented it with a handheld 16mm Aaton and some Plus-X black-and-white stock. "It was partly happenstance that things worked out that way," he admits. "I wasn’t documenting the shoot in the journalistic sense of ’This is a story about doing it.’ Instead, what we shot became an echo, almost a motion picture reprise of her still shoot. We didn’t quite know how much good footage we’d get or how valuable it would be. It was almost like an extended prep. As she did her solo still session, I sometimes reprised the things I saw her doing. At other times, we would shoot still and motion picture film together, as if we were performing a duet. We weren’t sure exactly what would happen or how effective it would be. But all of a sudden, Sheila and I started making things happen, and we became very energized by it. It gave definition to what we were trying to do, and real substance to everything we had discussed. We didn’t need to talk anymore about how we wanted to do it or what we wanted to accomplish we were just doing it."
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