Page 160 - THE DO-IT-YOURSELF LOBOTOMY Open Your Mind to Greater Creative Thinking

Raiders of a Nearly Lost Scene 151

In the original commercial, the final scene shows Jackson trying
quite unsuccessfully to play the guitar, with Diddley saying, “Bo, you
don’t know diddly.”
Months after the original spot first ran, Nike aired an alternative
version that had Bo Jackson playing a mean guitar throughout. This
sequel spot ended with Bo Diddley saying, “Bo, I guess you do know
diddly.”
When I was judging the New York Art Directors Club awards
competition later that year I asked one of the campaign’s creators,
David Jenkins, if they had planned to cut two versions of the commer-
cial all along. He confessed that the creative team played almost no role
in the generation of the second spot. It seems that the film editor was
inspired by an outtake where Bo Diddley uttered the “I guess you do
know diddly” line. The technician simply edited 30 seconds of footage
of Bo Jackson at the guitar meshed deftly with the music track to give
the illusion he could actually play the instrument, then cut the Bo Did-
dley outtake onto the end.
In this case, the editor’s open-mindedness grasped the potential of
the mistake in the original shooting. Additionally, it took the open-
mindedness of the creative team and client to go with the unsolicited
alternative.

RAIDERS OF A NEARLY LOST SCENE

If you remember the original Indiana Jones movie, Raiders of the Lost
Ark, you might recall a very funny scene in the public marketplace
where our hero shoots the big, ominous sword-wielding nemesis. To
refresh your memory, the crowd parts as the imposing villain taunts
protagonist Indy with an impressive series of swooshing-blade moves.
The Harrison Ford character, holding his patented bullwhip, sums up
his immense challenge, then makes a face, puts the whip in his other
hand, pulls out a gun, and shoots the bad boy dead.
It was a moment of huge yuks in the film.
Well, did you know that the scene wasn’t written that way? It
seems our star, Ford, was feeling under the weather during that day of
filming, so rather than trying to manage his way through an exhausting
physical scene, he improvised and pulled out the pistol, surprising even
director Spielberg.
Again, accidental genius, the unplanned guest, saves the day.