In addition to making highly acclaimed feature length documentaries, Morris pursues a thriving career as an award-winning director of television commercials.
Directing commercials requires the ability to tell and sell a story in 30 seconds, and the skills Morris has gathered in the commercials realm are certainly evident in his clean, concise presentation of ideas and information and the dramatic development of the story he’s telling in his feature length documentaries.
Morris’ Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company, Fourth Floor Productions, makes commercials for huge multinational corporations, promoting everything from beer to running shoes, from automobiles to dungarees. But Morris also creates commercials to support liberal candidates and causes. In 2004, he shot a campaign commercials series in which http://documentariesadmin.about.com/cgi/edit/Document/t.pl?mode=stage1&Cat=&Board=Document&Number=43&page=0&view=collapsed&what=showflat&sb=8he interviewed Republicans who had voted for Bush in 2000, but were switching their supporting to Kerry. Morris produced about 50 spots, but had difficulty getting them broadcast. Most were never aired.
One of Morris best-known, most playful commercials series was a 2004 campaign for Sharp Electronics, in which each spot culminated with a car crashing into a swimming pool, but each presented a slightly different narrative about what had happened. A Web address was given, and on it viewers found information about a fake contest. It turned out that the quirky commercials series was a virtual reality game. Very clever, very playful, very Morris.
You can view some of Errol Morris’ commercials and short films, read some of writings and learn a lot more about this brilliant filmmaker at Morris‘ Web site.
Morris uses his income from directing commercials to finance and maintain control over his documentary films. He is currently in post production on S.O.P.: Standard Operating Procedures, a documentary focusing on incidents of abuse and torture of suspected terrorist by the U.S. military at the Abu Ghraib prison. It is due for release in 2008.
