By Sarah Woodward
Director/ cinematographer David Wagreich and the directing team Speck/ Gordon (Will and Josh, respectively), have signed for commercial representation in the U.S. with Santa Monica-based Omaha Pictures. Additionally, executive producer Jodi Kemper has joined the production house headed by managing director Diane McArter. Kemper, who was previously head of production for four years at bicoastal Reactor Films, replaces executive producer Andy Traines, who moved over to bicoastal Anonymous Content.
Wagreich joins Omaha after three years at bicoastal/international @radical.media, his first spot roost. His recent work there includes ads for KPMG via J. Walter Thompson, New York; Nissan via TBWA/Chiat/Day, Los Angeles; and Gas de France out of Australie, Paris. Currently airing is his Target spot, "Plunge," via the client’s in-house agency, which promotes the discount retailer’s Club Wedd gift registry service. In the ad, a newlywed couple, decked out in wedding formalwear, leaps into a pool of water.
Wagreich is currently in production on his first Omaha job, a campaign for Credit Suisse First Boston via Messner Vetere Berger McNamee Schmetterer/Euro RSCG, New York. Through an affiliation with Toronto-based Radke Films, which maintains an affiliation with Omaha, the director/cinematographer also recently helmed a spot for Hydro One, out of Brand Works, Toronto.
"The Target spot really struck me as exemplary of David’s unique voice—his languid, lyrical, poetic, visual storytelling," said McArter. "His work has great characters and great humanity. As he looks to grow his career, I’m excited about him having the opportunity to grow in narrative, stylistic and conceptual realms—and to tell more stories."
Wagreich was attracted to Omaha’s boutique size, as well as to McArter’s hands-on approach to handling directors’ careers. Based in Los Angeles, Wagreich began his career working in various capacities on feature films in the 1980s. Working his way up the ranks, he served as second unit cinematographer on features such as Glory, For the Boys and Sleepless in Seattle, and he was second unit director on Legends of the Fall and Leaving Normal. Between feature assignments, Wagreich began working as a commercial DP for a range of directors, including Jim Sonzero of bicoastal Venus Entertainment. Wagreich’s move to directing was a natural progression that grew out of industry relationships he’d developed over the years. By ’98 he’d fashioned a viable directorial reel consisting of spots for MCI, Lexus, Southwest Airlines and Compuware. Based on that work, Wagreich was signed by @radical.media (SHOOT, 5/8/98, p. 1). Additional directing credits include spots for Lucini Olive Oil and Morgan Stanley.
Speck/Gordon are in production on their first job through Omaha: a multi-spot branding package for Sears and Young & Rubicam, Chicago. Omaha director Paul Gay will also helm some ads in the campaign.
Speck/Gordon spent the past two-and-a-half months working on six campaigns in Canada via Radke Films, through which they connected with McArter. Among those projects was "Late Wife," an offbeat humor spot for IKEA via Toronto agency Roche.
Speck/Gordon join Omaha after two years at bicoastal RSA USA, where they directed spots for Dunkin’ Donuts, out of Hill, Holliday, Connors, Cosmopulos, Boston; Hershey’s Almond Joy via Ogilvy & Mather, New York; UPN, out of now defunct Dweck!; and Polaroid for Leo Burnett USA, Chicago. The helmers’ current focus is on developing their penchant for what they call "observed humor." Said Speck, "Working on six campaigns back to back, we really immersed ourselves in commercials for the first time in about a year. We feel that we’ve found our voice and what we respond to in commercials, which is observed humor with realistic photography." Added Gordon, "It’s subtle comedy that allows us to explore nuances and slice-of-life moments."
The co-directors currently have some longform projects in various stages of development, and they have written and directed two short films: the Oscar-nominated 30-minute Culture and the five-minute Angry Boy. Based largely on the strength of the short films, they landed their first spot roost at @radical. media, where they stayed for a year before joining RSA USA.
Wagreich and Speck/Gordon round out an Omaha directorial roster that also consists of Gay, Robin Armstrong, Peter Goldschmidt, Michael Grasso, David McNally, Rupert Sanders and Vincent Ward. The company’s sales are handled on the West Coast by in-house rep Pia Alexander, in the Midwest by Chicago-based David Wagner & Associates, and on the East Coast by Ziegler Management Group, New York.
“13 Steps” Documentary Delves Into Strides Made By Olympian Edwin Moses–On The Track and Off
Not long after Edwin Moses figured out how to attack the solution to track's ultimate math problem, he transformed himself into the best hurdler in history.
That, in turn, gave the engineer-turned-Olympic champion the platform to go after more difficult issues that, even today, more than 40 years later, nobody has totally untangled.
The title to a new documentary on Moses, "13 Steps," pays homage to the then-revolutionary number of strides the track star took between the 10 barriers in the notoriously painful 400-meter hurdles — a race where he lined up 122 straight times over a span of 9 years, 9 months and 9 days without getting beat.
"Everyone's angry about something, but what can you do and what are you going to do?" Moses says in the movie, reflecting on the larger-than-sports role he assumed after becoming one of track's brightest lights in the 1970s and '80s.
The film, which debuts to the public Saturday at his alma mater, Morehouse College, dissects Moses' role in three causes that remain unresolved: fair pay for athletes in track and the Olympics; doping; and racial equality in America.
Moses knew he could not replicate Tommie Smith and John Carlos
Born in 1955, Moses was 13 when Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their fists on the medal stand at the Mexico City Olympics, gestures that made them pariahs for decades both inside the Olympic movement and out.
Those lessons put the world's best hurdler in no position to follow suit when he won in 1976. Some tried to portray his victory lap in Montreal with his white American teammate, Mike Shine, as something bigger, but as Moses says in an interview shortly after those Olympics, he simply viewed it as a spur-of-the-moment burst of un-symbolic... Read More