Director John Lindauer has joined bicoastal Believe Media, the commercial production house under the aegis of executive producers Luke Thornton and Liz Silver. Lindauer comes to the company after a year and a half at Santa Monica-based Fuel (SHOOT, 9/24/99, p. 7).
The director’s final assignment at Fuel was a Maryland Lottery spot, "Interrogation," out of Baltimore agency Eisner Communications. The ad features computer-generated aliens questioning an unseen and unresponsive victim that has been abducted. It’s later revealed that the victim is a cow.
Known for his proficiency with visual effects, Lindauer helmed spots at Fuel for such clients as Thingamajob.com, also via Eisner; HBO via Deutsch, New York; McDonald’s, out of DDB Chicago; and Twix via Grey, New York. He also recently finished a spec ad for shipping company DHL, which he wrote and directed. This effects-laden commercial features a flea trainer who ships the microscopic performers to his clients via DHL.
Lindauer’s exit from Fuel comes on the heels of Fuel founder Seth Epstein’s resignation from the company’s parent firm, New York-headquartered Razorfish. (Epstein will continue to direct spots via Fuel.) Additionally there have been some financial and legal woes at Razorfish (SHOOT, 1/5, p. 1). But Lindauer insisted that his decision to join Believe shouldn’t cast a negative pall on his former roost. "Fuel is awesome, and they have been incredibly supportive," he said. The director explained that he decided to come aboard Believe in large part because of an Internet project he began developing last year with Nick Johnson, an artist at iBelieve, the company’s new-media division. Lindauer said that the project, which began as an informal exploration, "has grown into something more than we’d originally imagined, to more and more levels of coolness. I got really excited about it and it started to eat into my availability. So it just made sense to have everything under one roof."
The director declined to go into specifics, but characterized the project as branded entertainment that will closely integrate television and the Internet, and "make the Internet a better place." He added that the project uses existing technology in previously unforeseen ways. Lindauer and Johnson are currently at work on the early phases of a pilot component.
Lindauer has also recently formed an exploratory directing collective called Johnell Jones, through which he intends to co-direct music videos which Believe will produce. The name Johnell Jones belongs to a young artist and aspiring director who appeared in "Human," one of Lindauer’s Thingamajob.com spots. Jones, as well as several of Lindauer’s creatively inclined friends, will comprise the collective. Early on in his career, Lindauer helmed clips for acts such as Porno for Pyros and Lisa Stansfield via Squeak Pictures, Los Angeles. But in recent years he has focused on spots. The collective allows him to dabble in the clip arena, as well as to mentor new talent.
Prior to joining Fuel, Lindauer was repped for two years by now defunct Pavlov Productions, the commercial production arm of Sony Pictures Entertainment. While at Pavlov, he directed "Pixelman," a digital television promo for Sony Wonder Centers, the Sony-owned HDTV theatres in cities such as New York and San Francisco (SHOOT, 10/9/98, p. 7). He has also directed ads for Land Rover, Oreo cookies and the Partnership for a Drug-Free America. He made his commercial directing debut with "Beyond the Numbers," an ad for the accountants’ trade organization AICPA, out of Hill, Holliday, Connors, Cosmopulos, Boston, produced by now defunct DQ Films.
Lindauer joins a Believe directorial roster that consists of iBelieve partner/director David van Eyssen and directors Brian Baderman, Jayson Moyer, Sanji, Floria Sigismondi and the Quay Brothers. Believe also maintains a satellite, Serial Dreamer, which reps founder/director Erick Ifergan and director/cameraman Darius Khondji.
Mary Knox of independent rep firm Help!, New York and Minneapolis, serves as head of sales for Believe and Serial Dreamer. Both companies are repped on the East Coast by New York-based Michael Arkin, in most of the Midwest by Chicago-based Gay Guthrey, in Detroit by Ron Hoffman, and on the West Coast by Los Angeles-based Vicky Miller.
