While SHOOT’s 2014 New Directors Showcase on Thursday evening, May 22, at the DGA Theatre in NYC cast the spotlight on up-and-coming helmers, earlier in the day our afternoon Directors/Producers Forum put established filmmakers front and center, including Michael Cuesta, a two-time DGA Award nominee–the first coming in 2012 for the Homeland pilot. He earned his second nom the following year for “The Choice” episode of Showtime’s Homeland.
Cuesta was featured in the Forum’s “In The Directors Chair” session, interviewed by SHOOT editor Robert Goldrich. (listen here)
Cuesta made his first industry mark as a commercialmaker and then diversified into features with L.I.E., nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in 2001. His next feature, 12 and Holding, debuted at the 2005 Toronto Film Festival and went on to earn a nomination for the Independent Spirit’s coveted John Casavetes Award. In between his first two features, Cuesta broke into series television, directing multiple episodes of HBO’s Six Feet Under.
Cuesta shared with the Forum audience some backstory as to how he got the chance to direct Six Feet Under, explaining that series creator Alan Ball and his co-executive producer Alan Poul were at Sundance looking for new filmmaking talent. This was at a time when such scouting wasn’t nearly as commonplace on the festival circuit as it is today. L.I.E. caught Ball’s eye and Cuesta became involved in the second season of Six Feet Under. “I binge watched it,” said Cuesta referring to the first season of that show’s episodes. He very much liked what he saw, recalling that he was “amazed how television could be like [a high quality] feature film…That very much started with premium cable,” added Cuesta, citing HBO and Showtime.”
Among Cuesta’s subsequent TV gigs was his first pilot as a director–for Showtime’s Dexter. He went on to direct multiple episodes of the show for which he also became a co-executive producer. Bob Greenblatt, who was president of Showtime back then and was involved in Six Feet Under, sent Cuesta the book that Dexter was based on. Cuesta also read a draft of the pilot script but he hadn’t received a formal offer to do the show. He would have to earn that opportunity and did so with a presentation which he said paralleled his experience in commercialmaking. Cuesta observed it was “very much like doing a conference call with an agency…You’re presented a board and you present your vision for how you see directing the commercial.”
His pitch for Dexter, though, was a bit different than trying to nail down an ad assignment. “You don’t have to put a treatment together,” though now he added, “people do.” Cuesta recollected putting together extensive notes and observations on Dexter, referencing Taxi Driver and its protagonist character Travis Bickle, among other “misanthropic outsiders.” Cuesta presented his ideas as to how to realize Dexter, and Showtime and the producers “took to it.”
Still, even with his indie film accomplishments and the success of Dexter and Six Feet Under, Cuesta said that a measure of good luck figured in his landing the Homeland opportunity. Cuesta noted that Ben Affleck was originally slated to direct the pilot. But when that fell through, Cuesta got the call, had a meeting and was in pre-pro a week later as director and exec producer. In the latter capacity he earned a primetime Emmy when Homeland took the Best Drama honor in 2012.
As alluded to, Cuesta’s roots are in commercialmaking. He grew up in the ad business as his father, Mike Cuesta, Sr., was an accomplished spot director and company entrepreneur with the iconic house Griner/Cuesta and then Griner/Cuesta & Schrom. The younger Cuesta followed in his dad’s footsteps, becoming a photographer and then moving into commercials, initially as a director/DP. He directed for such brands as Ford, Dove and State Farm, turning out emotionally moving public service work on teen alcoholism, and a PSA entitled “Baseball” for Autism Speaks.com via BBDO New York. For much of his career, Cuesta was repped by The Artists Company under the aegis of Roberto Cecchini. Cuesta is now again with The Artists Company which has begun a new chapter headed by executive producer Sally Antonacchio. The director currently has a window of availability for commercials after wrapping the feature Kill The Messenger starring Jeremy Renner for Focus Features. Based on the true story of journalist Gary Webb (portrayed by Renner), Kill The Messenger is set in the mid-1990s when Webb reported on the CIA’s involvement in importing cocaine into inner city/ghetto neighborhoods in the U.S. in order to raise money for the Nicaraguan Contras rebel army. As a result of his reporting, Webb found himself the target of a smear campaign that drives him to the point of suicide. Kill The Messenger is slated for an October release.
Cuesta said he likes to think his first two movies–L.I.E. and 12 and Holding–helped him land Kill The Messenger. Clearly, his collaborative relationship with Renner was a factor. Renner had a supporting role in 12 and Holding and the two always wanted to work together again. In fact, Cuesta did a series pilot with Renner around the time of the actor’s Oscar-nominated performance in The Hurt Locker. “I convinced him to do this TV pilot which did not get picked up,” said Cuesta, adding that Renner was probably a bit “relieved” when it wasn’t.
Cuesta has a development deal with 20th Century Fox for TV that runs through the end of next year so that will keep him busy. Still, he’d like to fit some commercialmaking into his schedule. He credited his ad industry experience with laying the foundation for his feature and TV pursuits. “Commercials gave me a lot of years to hone my directing craft.” His advice to young filmmakers is “to shoot a lot and learn how to visualize something.” Commercials provided that education and experience for Cuesta, who added that advertising also provided a better grasp of editing and sound. Thus the first time he was on set to direct a TV show, Cuesta said, “I knew how to run that set.”
Bookends
Bookending the In The Director’s Chair session with Cuesta were two Forum sessions. Kicking off the proceedings was a “Producer Perspectives” panel discussion. Wrapping the Forum event was another panel roundtable titled “Multi-Disciplinary Action: Directors.” (listen here)
The panel discussions focused on evolving roles–the first on producers and how they’re adapting to change and diversifying into different arenas; the second on how directors are not only getting involved in varied disciplines but also in some cases the breakthrough nature of the kind of work that is emerging.
The latter is exemplified in Farmed and Dangerous, the first foray into comedy series for Chipotle. The first season of the series played on Hulu and Hulu Plus and recently earned Chipotle Brand of the Year distinction at MIP TV in Cannes. “Multi-Disciplinary Action” panelist Tim Piper is a director who formed content company Piro with producer Daniel Rosenberg. Piro produced Farmed and Dangerous, a dark comedy about industrial agriculture, in partnership with Chipotle. Piper–who has an extensive background as an agency creative and director–served as director, writer and executive producer on the series while Rosenberg, who has an entertainment industry pedigree, was a writer/exec producer. Brought in for the show were writers Mike Dieffenbach (Less Than Perfect, Retired at 35) and Jeremy Pisker (an Oscar nominee for Bullworth).
Also serving as panelists on this Forum session were: director Amir Bar-Lev who’s handled by Chelsea for spots and branded content; director Laura Belsey who maintains her own Shadow Pictures; and attorney Brian Murphy of Frankfurt, Kurnit, Klein & Selz.
Murphy, who counsels ad agencies, advertisers and entertainment companies as they develop and produce advertising and entertainment properties across all media, discussed ownership and creative control issues that can arise in branded entertainment.
Belsey is a self-described “cross director” with work spanning commercials, shorts, documentaries (Katrina’s Children) and series TV (most recently multiple episodes of Law & Order: SVU).
Bar-Lev too is active in varied disciplines which have tapped into this documentary acumen. His Happy Valley–which shed light on the Penn State child abuse scandal–debuted at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Bar-Lev’s 12.12.12 for executive producer Paul McCartney, documenting the Hurricane Sandy relief concert featuring performances by The Rolling Stones, The Who, Roger Waters and Bruce Springsteen, among others, premiered at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival and was released by The Weinstein Company. The director made a major mark in the branded entertainment sector with the Hyundai-sponsored Re:Generation Music Project which made its festival debut at SXSW in 2012 and went on to win a Bronze Lion at Cannes. Bar-Lev recently directed the stirring call to action for the Call of Duty Endowment out of agency 72andSunny.
Producer Perspectives
As for producers tapping into multiple disciplines and adapting to a changing marketplace, the Producer Perspectives panel featured: Matt Bonin, chief production officer at Ogilvy & Mather, New York; Steve Humble, executive VP/managing director of production and development at The Martin Agency, Richmond, Va.; Oritte Bendory, executive producer/VP of development at GARTNER; Jackie Kelman Bisbee, founding partner/co-owner of Park Pictures; Scott Franklin, the NY-based exec producer of Chromista, the bicoastal commercial production house in which director Darren Aronofsky is partnered; and Justin Moore-Lewy, co-founder of production company HeLo.
In terms of adapting to social media and the need to craft real-time messages in a timely responsive manner, Bonin referenced a couple of quick and nimble teams he’s assembled at Ogilvy–a NewsRoom team consisting of people who monitor and analyze social media and other conversations happening around the agency’s brands, helping to craft responses in the short, near and long term; and Agile Video, built around a journalist/writer, staff director, agency producer/line producer hybrid and editor. Complementing them are designers/infographics experts. The teams can deploy quickly and out of necessity skirt some of the protocol for campaign-based marketing such as pages of briefs, layers of oversight and rounds of internal and external check-ins. This requires a disruptive leap of faith for the agency teams in creative and production and a high level of client trust.
Humble too is building in-house capabilities at The Martin Agency, which maintains editorial house Running With Scissors and animation studio HUE&CRY. Humble affirmed that the lion’s share of The Martin Agency’s work is done with outside production and post vendors since there’s no substitute for working with the best people and being pushed and inspired by them. Still, having responsive, immediate in-house resources in Richmond has proven invaluable.
Park’s Bisbee reflected on her company, which became well established in top-drawer commercialmaking before branching out with a short, The New Tenants, designed to help director Joachim Back attain a higher profile in the U.S. market. The New Tenants wound up winning the Best Live Action Short Film Oscar in 2010. This in turn opened some doors and led to Park Pictures launching a feature division which debuted with Robot & Frank directed by Jake Schreier which premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and won the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize. Park Pictures released its second and third films, the Maya Forbes-directed Infinitely Polar Bear and the John Slattery-directed God’s Pocket–which both debuted at this year’s Sundance Festival.
Franklin enjoys a close-knit collaborative relationship with filmmaker Aronofsky. Franklin’s feature producing credits include Aronofsky’s Black Swan (nominated for the Best Picture Oscar). He is a two-time recipient of the Independent Spirit Award for Best Picture–first for Aronofsky’s The Wrestler in 2008 and then Black Swan in 2010. Franklin related that Aronofsky’s positive creative experience directing a pair of Montana Meth campaigns led to the filmmaker ultimately deciding to form a commercial production/branded content production house in partnership with executive producers Ted Robbins and Sandy Haddad.
Moore-Lewy’s HeLo also has an expansive mindset as evidenced by such recent projects as the Bud Light “Epic Night” spot on this year’s Super Bowl (and the “Ian Up For Whatever” online campaign) as well as Beyond the Brick: A LEGO Brickumentary which premiered at the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival.
And GARTNER’s Bendory brings extensive experience as an agency producer (JWT, Ogilvy, DDB) to the production house side. She discussed how her agency acumen has come into play at GARTNER as well as the production house’s development of hybrid filmmaking talent, including directors with writing and editing chops.
Detailed coverage
More detailed coverage of the Directors/Producers Forum sessions as well as SHOOT’s 12th Annual New Directors Showcase will appear in the June 20th print issue of SHOOT and the concurrent SHOOT>e.dition.
To see the SHOOT New Directors Showcase reel and new director profiles, click here. A special SHOOT e.dition featuring the profiles and additional New Directors Showcase coverage came out earlier this week (5/28). To view additional photos of the event, click here.
Lead sponsors of the 2014 SHOOT Directors/Producers Forum and New Directors Showcase were harvest, ONE at Optimus and the DGA. Silver sponsors were Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz, Company 3 and Method Studios. Bronze sponsors were GARTNER, Palace Production Center, and U.S. Virgin Island (filmUSVI.com). SHOOT publisher & editorial director Roberta Griefer thanked the event sponsors in both her afternoon Directors/Producers Forum and evening New Directors Showcase welcome remarks, noting that it is their support that makes the event possible. She expressed appreciation to each company with an additional thank you to Company 3 for hosting a breakfast and color correction workshop for the directors in the 2014 SHOOT New Directors Showcase that took place earlier that day prior to the Forum and Showcase. The directors were treated to a session in one of Company 3’s ultra-high-end theaters with an internationally renowned colorist where they saw firsthand some of the benefits every filmmaker can take advantage of during a grading session.
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