Who are the A-list directors of the future? SHOOT has singled out four solo helmers and a pair of two-person teams who have the potential to become big names in the commercial production business. They have diverse backgrounds: a few are former agency creatives, others are recent film school grads, then there are those who worked their way up through the production ranks. Their reels are wildly different, too, showcasing spot work that ranges from darkly comic to gritty, documentary-style to stunningly cinematic. Of course, the one thing all of these directors share in common is talent, drive and serious potential.
Carter & Blitz
Sometimes two heads are better than one. At least that’s what Mack Carter and Jeff Blitz think. They comprise the directing duo Carter & Blitz, which is represented by bicoastal Anonymous Content. "I can’t imagine being the only director on some of these shoots and having to work with the agency and the client and the production company, and the only one making the choices is yourself. Here, we have each other to trust," Carter says. "It’s nice to know you have somebody who is totally on your side."
Both natives of New Jersey, the two met while they were students at the University of Southern California (USC) film school in Los Angeles. They worked on a series of short films together, and their collaboration continued when they graduated in ’98. "To pay the bills, we started ghostwriting treatments and doing presentations for commercial directors. Do you know this goes on?" Carter says, laughing.
Carter and Blitz were really good at doing treatments. In fact, it got to the point where agencies were going to production companies and asking for Carter and Blitz to brainstorm ideas for them. "We would go off and brainstorm some spots," recalls Carter, "and pitch them back, and of course, some other director would direct them. At that point, we thought, ‘Oh come on, we’re doing all of the work. Let’s just go direct them ourselves.’ "
So he and Blitz created a spec reel. Shot in June of last year, the reel includes darkly comic and slickly produced and stylized spots for Puma and Conseco. In one of the Conseco spots, a man drops dead after checking out his retirement portfolio on the Internet. His body is brought to a medical school, and just as a med student is about to cut into him, the guy wakes up. Turns out he wasn’t dead. He fell into a deep sleep because he was a Conseco client and knew he didn’t to worry about his finances. The reel also includes highlights from Spellbound—a documentary on the National Spelling Bee—shot, produced and directed by Blitz. The film has garnered several festival awards including the audience award at the 2002 Los Angeles Film Festival.
The strength of the reel landed Carter & Blitz at Anonymous Content, and since signing with the company they’ve shot spots for such clients as McDonald’s (Canada) and Bell Mobility via Cossette Communications Group, Toronto. One of the Bell Mobility spots, "Poison Ivy," centers on a phone call between two friends. We see one of the guys on a cell phone, scouring the library for information. He finds a book and opens up to a page that pictures a poison ivy leaf. He describes it to his buddy on the other end of the phone line, who just happens to be standing in a field full of poison ivy, holding a leaf in his hand.
On this job—as well as most others—Blitz focused on working with the actors, while Carter collaborated with the crew. "But we step all over each other constantly," Carter notes. Yet they still manage to get along, which is a good thing. "We’re best friends, and we’re also next-door neighbors," Blitz says. "If directing together didn’t work so well, it would be a miserable marriage."
Maria Demopoulos
Maria Demopoulos spent a long time—two and a half years—producing her reel of spec spots. "I wanted to do one spot, then show it to a few people and get some feedback before I did the second and the third and the fourth because I wanted to make sure I was making the right steps and strategizing the right way," explains Demopoulos, who directs spots out of bicoastal Coppos Films.
As you might have guessed, Demopoulos is meticulous. "In some ways, I’m very anal," she admits with a laugh. But her attention to detail—as well as her patience—has paid off. Over the last couple of years, Demopoulos has crafted a reel of four polished spec spots—for Equal sweetener, Sephora.com, Levi’s and Sony—that showcase her ability to shoot beautiful visuals as well as tell a compelling story.
The Sony spec spot "Pool"—which has a warm, romantic tone—depicts a group of teenagers climbing over a fence and sneaking a nighttime swim in someone’s in-ground pool. In the process, two kids—sharing the headphones of a Sony Walkman—form a connection through music. Meanwhile, "Shrink To Fit," a powerful spec spot for Levi’s, uses black-and-white film, the poetry of Paul Beatty and a cast of non-actors to talk about the civil rights movement.
No matter what the subject, Demopoulos says she strives "to create something real and authentic," paying close attention to every detail, from setting to wardrobe.
Demopoulos got her education in filmmaking on the set. After graduating from the University of California at San Diego, with a fine arts degree, the Los Angeles native worked as a still photographer in the fashion and commercial arenas before launching a career as a freelance producer and production manager for commercials and music videos. The experience she gained over the last five years has been invaluable, according to Demopoulos, noting that she learned quite a bit from working with director David Cameron of bicoastal The Artists Company, among others.
"I got to see the whole process of putting together a spot, and it was great to see that over and over and over again," she notes, "because I learned about the politics of the business and how specific you have to be with your reel and how to market yourself. I think people who go to film school and do a reel in a vacuum come out and don’t really have that knowledge."
Demopoulos recently added her first official spot job to her reel. Over the summer, she shot "Derailed," which promotes the book of the same name written by Jimmy Siegel, vice chairman/senior executive creative director at BBDO New York. The novel, to be published next winter by AOL/Time Warner Books, tells the story of two people who meet on a train and embark on a passionate affair. The ad is set in a hotel room and depicts a steamy meeting between the two, while conveying the feel of being on a train through the lighting, quick edits and sound effects.
"Jimmy had a really strong idea of what he wanted to do. It was interesting because he was the agency and the client," says Demopoulos, who was thrilled to add the spot to her reel. "It was so great to work with an agency and collaborate."
Keith English
Keith English isn’t interested in ordinary concepts, ordinary environments, ordinary anything. "The scripts I get tend to be unusual films to other people. I enjoy those. Those are the ones where you are creating a world rather than just replicating what naturally happens in the world," says English, a London-based director who is represented stateside by bicoastal CaseGiraldi Media Co., and overseas by Will Van Der Vlugt Film Productions, London and Amsterdam. (CaseGiraldi represents some the directors on the roster of Will van der Vlugt Film Productions in the U.S., while directors Bob Giraldi and Joakim Eliasson of CaseGiraldi are repped in Europe by Will van der Vlugt Film Productions.)
English’s reel of European spot work showcases his talent for creating bizarre, fascinating worlds. For instance, "Hotel" for telecommunications company Altus, out of Anderson & Lemke, Amsterdam, is set in a hotel room in which nothing works—the door flies off its hinges, a coat rack collapses, ice runs through the water pipes, a light fixture explodes. As the occupant discovers, the only thing in the room that works properly is his satellite phone, although he has to hush the dozens of penguins milling about outside his window so that he can hear his caller.
Meanwhile, "Clones," a spot for Credit Lyonais via DDB Brussels, transports viewers into a futuristic factory in which a hairless man with an electronic mouth clones subservient bank customers for the banks of the future. However, there is one clone—a customer of Credit Lyonais—that won’t conform.
Both "Hotel" and "Clones" are cinematic in style, as is "Little Italy." Done via Duval Guillaume, Belgium, the spot for Stella Artois beer finds an old man sitting in a restaurant in New York’s Little Italy. The old timer tells us that he is always asked where Stella Artois comes from, and he takes us back in time, regaling us with the tale of how his forefathers in Italy brewed the beer. It is a romantic story with filmic images from the old country interspersed throughout. But there is a twist at the end. "So this is what I tell them," the old man concludes as he is leaving the restaurant, "and they believe me!" Turns out he was lying all along—Stella Artois is from Belgium.
Given the slick production, art direction and cinematic feel of his work, it comes as no surprise to learn that English was a "complete film geek" as a boy. A fan of filmmakers such as David Lynch, English studied filmmaking at Bournemouth University, Bournemouth, England. After school, he went to Germany, where he edited feature films. Eventually, he came back to England and started making film trailers. A good friend of his, Jonathan Glazer (who is repped for commercials by Academy, London), had gotten into commercials and suggested English try his hand at it. English made a spec reel and signed with Will van der Vlugt Film Productions.
English has made a name for himself overseas as a dynamic, original director, and he is excited about the prospect of breaking into the American advertising market. "I tend to watch more American films and more American television than I do English," he says, "and what I think I’m quite good at is to take that American genre and then give it a slight bit of European perspective."
John & Ward
John Benson and Ward Evans—known as the directing team John & Ward—can certainly appreciate the sweat that goes into creating a concept. Both men are former agency creatives who spent several years of their careers at FCB, San Francisco, where Benson was an art director, and Evans was a copywriter. "That’s one of our advantages," Evans says. "We’ve come from that side, and as directors we are able to realize that by the time an idea gets to the director, it has been fought and haggled over, and someone has thrown themselves on a pile of nails in a conference room somewhere over it."
Not unlike many agency creatives, both Benson and Evans were long interested in directing. "That’s where we really wanted to end up," Benson says. "We wanted to be telling the stories—not sitting in the cubicle coming up with them." They decided to pursue their goal full-time after they were laid off from FCB last fall. (They had worked at FCB from 1993-’96, left the agency for two years to freelance, then returned in ’98 to work on accounts such as Levi’s, MTV and Sega.)
Upon exiting FCB this time around, the duo directed a short film called Dance Machine. The mockumentary follows a man who aspires to win a local dance machine contest. (Generally found at video arcades, dance machines require players to match dance moves shown on a screen by stepping on corresponding foot pads.) Dance Machine has won several awards including the Clam D’or at a Rhode Island film festival called Clam Dance. That’s not a joke, by the way. "It’s their version of Slam Dance," Evans explains.
In addition to completing the film, John & Ward have also compiled a reel of spec spots, which helped them land a freelance directing arrangement with Valiant Productions, San Francisco. Their spec work includes spots for MTV and the San Francisco Giants, with the common thread being humor. For example, "My Bits," one of the MTV spots, is set in a prison cell shared by two men, one of whom entertains the other by donning a sheet and makeup, and performing the sultry Britney Spears tune "I’m A Slave 4 U."
Meanwhile, the San Francisco Giants spot "Sanctuary" centers on a man who offends a group of Giants baseball fans. They chase him, and he takes refuge in a church. But the priest—who also happens to be a Giants fan—turns him over to the angry mob.
Benson—who cites films such as This Is Spinal Tap, Being John Malkovich, Office Space and Evil Dead II as some of the duo’s influences—says he and his partner naturally gravitate toward humor. "We have a lot of fun doing humor," Benson says. "It’s how we treat our lives. We try to have fun. I don’t know that we’re really worried about being pigeonholed. We can make a tearjerker dramatic feature down the road from now."
Brit McAdams
When Brit McAdams was a creative director shooting promos and other projects at VH1 in New York, he used to complain about not having enough time or money to get his work done. Looking back, McAdams—who is now directing commercials through bicoastal Tool of North America—is glad for that. "It’s one of those things where at the time I was there I hated not having money and hated that the talent was there for only forty minutes, but it taught me how to work with deadlines and no money," says McAdams, who worked at the television network from 1992-’00. "It was a great place to cut my teeth because I wound up doing everything."
For the most part, McAdams conceptualized, shot and edited his projects at VH1, which include several short films starring performers from Saturday Night Live. The humorous shorts—shown on various VH1 award shows—have Will Ferrell playing Elton John, Ana Gasteyer as Celine Dion, Cheri Oteri as J. Lo and Chris Kattan as Bono. Certainly, the fact that he has worked with these stars opens up doors at the agencies, right? "It’s a bit of a catch-22," McAdams says. "People laugh and think the stuff is funny, which is great. But there is also the question of, ‘Oh, you worked with SNL people: SNL people are funny naturally. Can you make other people funny?’ "
Actually, McAdams can make other people—including non-actors—funny judging by the rest of the work on his reel. A VH1 promo called "My VH1 Music Awards" cast real people as obsessed music fans locked in padded cells as doctors studied their insane devotion to acts such as Madonna, Guns N’ Roses and Billy Joel.
McAdams also has a way with robots. "Mr. Quackers," a commercial he directed for Duracell out of BBDO New York, portrays a battle between robots set loose in a ring and programmed to destroy each other. Think BattleBots meets Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. Amusingly enough, a big yellow duck robot wins the war.
More recently, cable network Trio called on McAdams to conceptualize, direct and cut a six-spot package that shows a series of regular people going about their daily lives (mowing their lawns, jogging, watching TV) with lighters raised above their heads as if they were at a concert. The spot promotes Trio’s "Summer of Music" programming schedule. Another recent project was "Gizmo," for The Connecticut Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, out of agency Mintz & Hoke, Avon, Conn. The PSA, which was recently featured in SHOOT’s "The Best Work You May Never See" gallery, parodies the infomercial genre, offering a gizmo called the Wacko Wand, which will instantly tell you if someone is mentally ill. The ad is meant to illustrate how common prejudice is against the mentally ill.
McAdams—who at press time was about to shoot a three-spot campaign for the Portland TrailBlazers via Nerve, Portland, Ore.—spent a month on the Trio project and enjoyed the opportunity to once again be involved of every aspect of completing a job. "It was really great to get my hands dirty again, think things through from the beginning and prepare not only for the shoot but for editing," he reflects. "I really love seeing things from start to finish."
The director hopes that agency clients will want to take advantage of that. "A selling point for Tool," he says, "is that I’ll stick around for editing."
Wayne robins
The Hire series for BMW out of Fallon, Minneapolis, featuring short films helmed by A-list feature filmmakers, and produced by Anonymous Content, was one of the most groundbreaking and exciting projects in advertising of late, and Wayne Robins got to see the process from start to finish. That’s because he served as director of The Making Of Hire, a behind-the-scenes film that chronicled the production of the shorts, which were viewable at BMWfilms.com. (A second series of shorts, this time produced by bicoastal RSA USA, broke this month.)
Robins certainly learned a lot from doing the film, which he spent a year on. "I refer to that project as my film school," he notes. "I didn’t go to film school. I actually did a film instead."
A graduate of Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn., Robins earned a degree in political science and as a student didn’t have any aspirations to become a filmmaker. Upon graduation in ’97, he moved out to Los Angeles and landed a temp job as a receptionist at Edge Creative, the now defunct ad shop that handled the Coca-Cola account. His plan was to save money for graduate school, where he planned to study ethnomusicology. But he found himself intrigued by the ad business and moved up to junior creative/associate producer at Edge Creative, where the first spot he wrote was Coca-Cola’s "Downhill Racer" which depicts a handicapped man participating in a go-cart race. "The first thing I wrote there [Leslie] Dektor [of Dektor Film, Hollywood], shot and it was one of three spots that helped him win a DGA Award [in 2000]," relates Robins.
Upon leaving Edge Creative in ’99, Robins moved on to positions including executive producer of internal advertising at Digital Entertainment Network (DEN), Los Angeles—where he directed three spots for Blockbuster that ran on the Internet—and creative director at agency Amoeba, Santa Monica.
At the moment, he runs his own production company, Sonar Productions, and is looking for commercial representation. Randi Wilens of RW Media, Los Angeles, handles him for music videos and recently landed him an assignment to shoot a series of anti-drug PSAs for Extasy Records. Robins expects the documentary-style PSAs—which depict the lives of drug addicts in Venice, Calif.—to begin airing on MTV soon.
Robins’ reel also includes the aforementioned Blockbuster ads he directed via DEN for the Internet. Shot in black and white, the humorous Blockbuster ads find people trying to use their Blockbuster cards for purposes other than renting videos and DVDs. In one spot called "Theater," a guy unsuccessfully tries to use his card it to pay for movie tickets. The other spots are "Airport" and "Taxi."
A spec spot for Toyota called "Cyperpunk" centers on a woman driving a Toyota Prius through the desert. She stops at a gas station for a bathroom break but doesn’t bother to fill up the car because she can count on it to make the distance. "One thing I’ve been told over and over again is concept will always be king, but people want to see beautiful film," Robins notes. "That was the logic behind that spot."
In addition to traditional spots, Robins is eager to work on more projects for the Internet as well as branded content. "The thirty-second commercial might not ever die," Robins muses, "but if it is on life support or in ICU in ten years, or only ten percent of ad budgets are going to that, I’d like to be positioned to ideally be one of the pioneers of branded content."n
