Avalon Films Explores Latino Family Life In California Milk Campaign.

Hank Benson of Avalon Films has directed three new Spanish-language spots for the California Milk Processor Board that encourage Latino adults to drink milk by suggesting it can give them the strength to meet the everyday challenges of work and family life. Conceived by Santa Monica agency Anita Santiago Advertising, the ads feature realistic portrayals of Latino family life that run counter to common stereotypes.

One spot, Baby Talk, has a young, well muscled father caring for his infant daughter. While sipping a glass of milk, the man tells his child that he plans to remain strong enough to pick her up at her quinceañera, her 15th birthday party. Another spot, Heavy Lifting, features a woman who talks about her job as a postal worker and as a mom caring for young children. In the third spot, Fireman, a fire fighter suggests that milk makes him strong, “like a machine,” to meet the rigors of his job and family life. The spots end with the tagline, “Familia, Amor y Leche,” (Family, Love and Milk).

The aim of the campaign is to get Latino adults, already familiar with the benefits of milk for children, to consider drinking more themselves. “We are connecting with viewers by showing Latino men and women as they really are,” said Anita Santiago Advertising president Anita Santiago. “When we show a strong woman, other women identify with her. A scene of a father caring for his little girl may run counter to stereotype, but it is the way things are in the real world.”

For Benson, who shot the spots at three separate, Los Angeles area locations, the key was the casting of the three central actors. The director took an unusual approach in choosing the talent, spending less time with line readings and more time talking to and getting to know the actors as people. That led him to make some unconventional choices.

“The reason I spend so much time talking with the actors is that I want to find a piece of their own personal story, their personal myth that I can key off of and weave into my story,” recalled Benson. “The guy we used in Baby Talk was a very big, strong guy, but he had a gentleness about him that was a nice contrast to his physicality. The woman in Heavy Lifting we chose because she was believable. I look for people who are extraordinary in their ordinariness.”

Structurally, the spots are direct and uncomplicated. Close-ups of the central characters telling their stories alternate with vignettes of their home and work lives. The cutaways are rendered in black & white as a simple means of indicating a change of time and place. “My approach is to make it beautiful, cinematic and simple,” Benson asserted. “Dramatic, but not tricky, these were not spots to get tricky with.

“The spots are about real moments. There is a point in Baby Talk when the dad is holding the baby over his head, in a way that all parents have done. Or we have a mom in her backyard with her kids dancing on her bare feet.”

Such moments give the stories their richness and depth, according to Jeff Manning, executive director of the California Milk Processor Board. “The spots delve deeply into the lives of real people,” Manning said. “Images of the woman with the mail bag on her back and the fire fighter working in the station communicate a lot about who they are and what they care about.”

Santiago said that she and Manning chose Benson for the project for his ability to tell honest, heartfelt stories. She noted that although she hadn’t worked with the director before, she recalled seeing a public service announcement that he wrote and directed for the Make a Wish Foundation two years ago. Its sincerity left a lasting impression.