Gordon Winiemko and Julie Wyman's Enjoy

Videomakers Julie Wyman and Gordon Winiemko love the Coca-Cola sign that reigns over downtown San Francisco, spearing the fog with red neon. They love it so much they made a movie about it.

Enjoy is a sort-of documentary; two young urbanites chronicle their obsession using a video camera, cinema verité style. We enter the movie in a car, screeching through San Francisco's downtown streets, searching for the sign. We leave it dancing victoriously at the base of the object of desire. Boy and Girl meet sign. They fall in love with it. Sign eludes Boy and Girl. Boy and Girl get sign.

But don't sit back expecting a succinct story, because instead of a narrative, Enjoy is a continuous commercial interruption. Each minute of the 14-minute movie is a slick 60 second ad spot.

The form took root when Julie was teaching video at an art college. The "art" that her students were most familiar with was advertising. She started wondering, "if ads are the art of our time, what are they expressing?" So Julie and Gordon began watching commercials closely. Then they appropriated editing styles from current ads and MTV videos (which in turn have borrowed from experimental film). The mimicry is impressive. One filmmaker told the pair, "If I didn't know you, I would think this was a demo reel you produced to land a gig in the ad world."

But Enjoy's ads aren't selling anything. They offer rapid-fire, tongue-in-cheek, often-contradictory commentary on the Coke Sign, and all the signs that make up our world. This gets a little confusing. How does a well-intentioned viewer know who is interpreting the Sign the right way? You don't, says Gordon. "We kind of like the idea of mocking the authoritative voice." Enjoy introduces a chorus of voices, and all of them — including a Coca-Cola representative, a soothing infomercial announcer, a snooty art critic, even the filmmakers themselves — are worthy of scrutiny.

All this irony begs a question: Do the duo really care that much about a Coke sign? They insist that they do. "We are sad when the sign is running out of batteries," says Julie. "We did call Coke. We love the sign. Like, really."

Part of what Enjoy is about is finding pleasure in what has been considered commercial, crass, and evil by the indie-film world: Ads are bad. One character in the movie, confused by Julie and Gordon's obsession, even says, "It's advertising! Its a multinational corporation trying to infiltrate our consciousness solely for its private profit." But what do we do when, after we condemn the iron grip of advertising, our collective mouths still water at the new Banana Republic khakis, a palm pilot, Diet Coke poured over ice? Enjoy says you can deconstruct your Coke and drink it too.

A pivotal moment in the making of the movie occurred when Julie called the Coca-Cola company. The company told her she could not photograph the sign without permission. "But it's part of the skyline," she says. "It's our Sign. We watch the lights going on and off."

After a little research, she realized that Coca-Cola is acutely protective of its trademark. This made its way into the movie as a company representative who constantly admonishes us to say Coca-Cola the "right" way, to give the "right" meaning to the word. Over the course of the movie, his voice becomes increasingly frenetic and harried. Because, as Enjoy suggests, there is no "right" way; signs are always up for grabs and meaning is something we all create.

"If you don't like what's being produced, make your own culture," says Gordon. So they made a movie that is as entertaining as it is insightful. In one spot, a woman painted entirely as a human advertisement parades downtown. She blissfully pours Coke over her body, erasing the sign. Like this character, Enjoy acknowledges the power of corporate culture, but refuses to play the role of victim. And that is ultimately, well, refreshing.

Gordon and Julie shot the video on Hi8 and did their postproduction at BAVC. They edited on the Avid, did color correction in the on-line suite, and used the digital audio suite for sound editing. The movie will have its festival debut on October 10 at the Mill Valley Film Festival. The makers also are planing a local screening event in which Enjoy will be projected onto its object of affection — a billboard for all to see.


-Heather Abel