American Cinematographer - November 1990 - 87

Air Force Ads

-

the Allure of

Flight

by Ron Magid
The first

thing one notices about Joe
Murray's U.S. Air Force commercials is
their sincerity. Every shot is right on, true
blue American propaganda, without a
trace of cynicism. Creating two commer¬
cials that would convey the excitement
and intensity of flight - on very tight
schedules
might have proved a diffi¬
cult task, but the project was dear to the
filmmaker's heart. Director/cinematogra¬
pher Murray, who started shooting film at
age 13 in his hometown of Elizabeth, New
Jersey, is a patriotic American, and it
-

shows in his work. "Both of my parents
came over on the boat," says Murray. "I
think the people of this country want to

rediscover who we are as a culture -
and the dream of the frontier. That's what
I wanted to achieve with these commer¬
cials."
After earning his degree in tele¬
vision engineering from Long Beach

State, Murray joined MCA/Phillips, and
a process for digitizing
laser disc masters. Later, at San Fran¬
cisco's One Pass Productions, he began
his cinematography career by shooting
the very first music videos created for
MTV. "I started as an electrical engineer
and then I became a director of photog¬

helped develop

Above: Frame

from Hot Rod

raphy. I took an engineering approach to
photography - I learned everything I
could, went back to my optics classes,
then started out as a cinematographer on
rock videos. Fortunately, the stuff was
looking good and people started asking
me

a

spot uses actual
Air Force pilot
in analogy of
plane and auto
power. Left:
Artistic frame
has plane
centered in Hot
Rod mirror.

to direct."

Murray worked at Film Fair as
full-time commercial director for four

years,

then established his

own

firm in

1989, Murray & Blum Moving Pictures. He
has since directed commercials for clients
as diverse as Michelob, Mazda and

Nynex. It was under the Murray & Mc¬
Namara banner that he helmed the U.S.
Air Force commercials.
was

The first of these, "Hot Rod,"
about the dream of flight. The "Doc"

spot, shot nine months later, tried to
communicate the

of actual flight.
tic story

more visceral intensity
"Hot Rod" tells the roman¬

of a drifter who meets

up

with

a

kindred soul from the desert skies - an
Air Force pilot. It utilizes an unabashedly

patriotic color scheme: the drifter's
muscle

is red, the

sky is blue, the
plane is white. "This spot has all the clas¬
car

sic American

November 1990

mythic images," Murray

says, "one guy out on the desert horizon,
and out of the distance comes the white

knight, a winged warrior, a jet fighter. The
Air Force loved the commercial and they

American

Cinematographer

83



American Cinematographer - November 1990

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