The batch of up-and-coming directors chosen for the spring directors’ issue was carefully cultivated from the crop of budding spot talent. SHOOT searched fertile creative soil, leading to a diverse group of helmers. Alexander Kane’s spec reel suggests a promising future. LITTLE x, one of the most in-demand music video directors today, is making his mark on the spot world. Professional surfer/director Warren Kushner is riding in on a wave of success. And Sean Ehringer exemplifies why former agency creatives can often make an adept transition into directing.
Sean Ehringer
Thank goodness for second chances. According to former agency creative Sean Ehringer, director Erich Joiner of bicoastal Tool of North America rang him up about eight years ago to ask if he would consider helming a project and joining the company as a director. Ehringer, who was then an associate creative director at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners (GS&P), San Francisco, was tempted, but declined. "I’d just had my first baby, and was doing well at Goodby," he recalls. "So I said, ‘That sounds very risky,’ and I didn’t go."
Ehringer continued as an agency creative, eventually moving on to another San Francisco agency—Leagas Delaney—as partner/co-creative director. He enjoyed his work there on accounts such as adidas and Sega, but the idea of directing stuck in his mind. He even tried his hand at it, directing a few :10 teasers for Sega, and a series of pro bono spots for the Center for Independent Living, Berkeley, Calif., which Tool produced. After leaving the agency, Ehringer decided he was willing to take a chance; he grabbed the phone and gave Joiner a call. Joiner welcomed him into the Tool fold last December. "I was happy they’d have me," relates Ehringer.
Since coming on board, Ehringer has wrapped spots for the Oregon Dairy Farmers, out of JohnsonSheen Advertising, Portland, Ore.; and Sears via Ogilvy & Mather (O&M), Chicago. His reel displays the ability to tell a story, capture ordinary everyday moments and find laughs. For example, in "Role Reversal" for the Oregon Dairy Farmers, a group of boys is playing baseball when the ball flies over a fence and into a neighbor’s yard. The kids figure they’ll never get it back, since an old man lives there. Suddenly, the ball the boys were playing with—as well as others lost over the years—comes flying over the fence. It seems the old guy is full of energy because he’s been drinking milk.
One of two Sears ads, "Role Reversal," simply depicts a grown son sitting at a kitchen table with his parents. They’re all silent. Suddenly, the timer on the dryer goes off. "Well, that’s the last load," the mother reports as she jumps up from the table. "See you next Saturday, son," the father adds. The subsequent voiceover reveals that washers and dryers are on sale at Sears.
Ehringer is particularly excited about having landed the Sears work. "Before I got the job, I was watching some Sears spots; I was on the phone with my old partner, and I said, ‘Hey, have you seen that Sears campaign?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, it’s a good campaign.’ And I said, ‘I wonder how long it will be before I get the reel to a point where an agency like that would call me, and I could do one of those?’ Two days later, Philip Detchmendy [Tool’s managing director] called and said, ‘We might be able to get you in on the Sears job.’ "
The Sears spots were about finding little moments, notes Ehringer, who stresses that he is not eager to have his work categorized. "I would not want to be pigeonholed," he states, "and, hopefully, I will never have that kind of reel."
Having spent more than a decade at ad agencies, Ehringer is adapting to his new role, and believes his time on "the other side" was excellent preparation for his role as a director. The only real difficulty he has is letting go when it comes time for the edit—"And I thought I’d be better about that," he quips.
Alexander Kane
When director Alexander Kane put together a reel of spec spots a few years ago, he didn’t intend to use the work to break into the commercial production business. In fact, the aspiring feature film director recalls, "I just figured it would be a good way to showcase my work in general." A graduate of Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, N.Y., Kane already had one independent film to his credit: 1997’s The Gauguin Museum, which he directed while still in school.
But as Kane was conceptualizing, producing and directing the spots that would ultimately land on his reel, he realized he enjoyed the genre. "It started off as a means to an end, and just became a means," he explains.
The director—who is represented by The Haus, New York—certainly has a knack for the ad discipline. His work includes an impressive campaign of anti-drug spec spots. Themed "Drugs Destroy Heroes," the dark, thought-provoking commercials illustrate how drugs can destroy even mighty superheroes like Spiderman, Wonder Woman, Batman, The Incredible Hulk and Superman.
Unfortunately the "Drugs Destroy Heroes" campaign never made it on TV, because the licensing company that could have approved the ads for air did not like the idea of superheroes being depicted as drug users. "It’s too bad," laments Kane. "That would have blown up if it had got on the air." The spots—titled "Wonder Woman," "Spiderman," "Superman" and "Combo Superheroes"—show the mighty ones suffering through the ravages of drug addiction. For instance, in "Wonder Woman," the seemingly indestructible heroine is seen sitting on the curb of a garbage-strewn street, her arms bearing the scars of IV drug use.
In addition to the darkness of the "Drugs Destroy Heroes" work, Kane’s reel features a funny, offbeat Mountain Dew spec spot called "Doing the Dew," that finds a goofy guy in his bathroom, bathing in Mountain Dew and brushing his teeth with the soft drink.
While the "Drugs Destroy Heroes" commercials are quite different in tone from the Mountain Dew spot, they share a common thread. "I love to create worlds that feel as completely real as possible, and yet are both magical and impossible at the same time," Kane says of his work. "There’s this level of improbability combined with reality, and those oppositions come together and marry each other."
Kane’s exceptional reel won him meetings with some major commercial production houses. But he quickly found the bigger companies wanted to box him into a particular genre. "It was like, ‘Are you a comedy director? Are you a dialogue director? Or are you a visual director?’ " he recounts. "And I didn’t want to get pigeonholed."
Executive producer Ivo van Riet and general manager Yan Schoenefeld are co-founders of The Haus—a recently formed, boutique-like subsidiary of German production group Neue Sentimental Film (NSF). The partners appreciated Kane’s diverse body of work. "They liked the lack of repetition," notes Kane, "and that it wasn’t standard, typical U.S. market stuff."
Kane strives to do something different in his work, wracking his brain to come up with unique ideas. An admitted TV junkie, he says, "The idea is for me to force myself to think about what I haven’t seen before. Not to intentionally set my work apart, but tons of stuff on TV is derivative. I like the idea of coming up with something special."
And, by the way, Kane is still eager to direct longform. "I’m amped to do features," he enthuses, adding, "I wrote a screenplay which is absolutely bad-ass, if you know anyone who wants to make a movie."
Warren Kushner
Here’s a shocker: A lot of directors stick with commercialmaking because it is a financially lucrative business. (Surprised?) But the cash doesn’t motivate Warren Kushner, a director who is represented by bicoastal Bedford Falls. "So many people are caught up in the money, but money is the last thing that I look at, if I even do look at it," he says. "I just want to do the best projects that are out there."
To the skeptics, Kushner swears he is for real. "I live a simple lifestyle, and there are so many ways to enjoy this incredible life. You really don’t need millions of dollars to do it," he reasons. "You can hike and surf."
Actually, Kushner lives in Manhattan Beach so that he can surf. The director was once a pro surfer, and he still competes in various competitions when he has the time. But these days his passion is filmmaking.
A native of Oudtshoorn, South Africa, Kushner got a video camera when he was 13 and soon found himself making documentary-style mini-films. He gave up the hobby when he began surfing professionally, but eventually got hooked on shooting stills while on surfing tours that took him all over the world. "I wasn’t like the other surfers, hanging out at the beach with the girls," Kushner laughs. "I would go to museums and travel around taking pictures of people."
During some downtime in his surfing schedule a few years back, Kushner got a call from his brother Dale, who runs a production services company called Africa Film Services, which has offices in Cape Town, South Africa, and Los Angeles. Dale asked Warren if he would like to help out on a month-long Marlboro shoot being helmed by late director Paul Giraud. Warren jumped at the chance. "The first day I saw what Paul did, I said, ‘That’s exactly what I want to do,’ " Warren relates.
Kushner slowly cut down on the surfing and spent the next few years working on spots, eventually becoming a camera assistant for various directors—including Giraud, who took him all over the world on shoots for clients including Nike, Samsung and Marlboro. "[Paul Giraud] had an amazing energy about him that he was able to transfer to the film that he shot," Kushner reflects. "He enveloped himself in the situation, and he let me be right there next to him."
Eventually, Kushner shot a spec reel, creating spots for Yahoo!, Starbucks and Coca-Cola. Much of his work celebrates diversity and unity. The Starbucks spec ad, for example, features a montage of faces. The Coca-Cola ad finds an elderly African man being trailed by a group of smiling kids as he goes to a local store to buy soda.
After assembling a spec reel, Kushner found commercial representation via bicoastal HSI Productions—the company that had also represented Giraud—where he helmed ads for Häagen-Dazs, FOX Sports and Pedigree Dog Food. There he indulged in his humorous side. Pedigree’s "It’s No Secret" out of Grey, New York, for example, opens on a group of guys watching "the big game" on TV. Meanwhile, the host’s little dog is up on the dining room table licking a giant ham. Since the owner is the only one who catches the canine in action, he sneakily rinses off the piece of meat before putting it back on the table.
Kushner left HSI Productions after a year and a half, and signed with Bedford Falls at the end of last year. As for recent work, he just finished a new spot for E*Trade, which was created by Direct Partners, New York and Los Angeles. "I’m very excited about it," he says. "E*Trade always does such good work."
The director is picky about the jobs he accepts. "I only want to do work that can go on my reel," he states. And what kind of spot meets his standards? "It needs to be something that is going to be memorable. I want to make people laugh. I want to make people cry. If you are conveying a message or some emotion, then people remember it. It stands out."
LITTLE x
Director LITTLE x (who prefers to keep his birth name to himself) wasn’t a budding filmmaker as a young boy growing up in Toronto. Rather, the artistically inclined little LITTLE x thought he was going to be some sort of graphic designer. "I was born with a pencil in my hand," he cracks.
But in high school he worked on a video project for class, realized he wasn’t half bad with a camera, and decided to check out the TV business, landing an internship at MuchMusic, Canada’s equivalent of MTV. He was hooked on the medium, and at the age of 18, made his way down to New York City. There he got an internship at director Hype Williams’ Big Dog Films.
The internship was supposed to last five months. LITTLE x stayed nearly four years, learning everything he could about filmmaking from Williams, whose music video credits include TLC’s "No Scrubs"; Busta Rhymes’ "What’s It Gonna Be?"; and "I’ll Be Missing You," by Puff Daddy & The Family (now P. Diddy & The Bad Boy Family), featuring Faith Evans and 112. "The way Hype really taught me—and everybody—was, he just let you be around," explains LITTLE x. "I learned everything during that time by just being around, shutting up, and asking questions when I could."
Rising through the ranks, LITTLE x worked for Big Dog Films as a storyboard artist, and ultimately began directing music videos on his own. It was just about three years ago that he signed with bicoastal HSI Productions. In recent years, he has directed music videos for Usher, Mystikal and Nelly, as well as commercials for clients including Ikea, Reebok and BET.
The Ikea spot titled "Billy Idol," out of Roche Macauley, Toronto, finds the punk rocker rapping in a hip-hop-video style setting and resembles LITTLE x’s music video work. The ad ends with the tagline, "Never Be Afraid To Try Something Different." Meanwhile, Reebok’s "A Walk in His Shoes," done via Berlin Cameron & Partners/Red Cell, New York, is a more standard spot, opening with black-and-white footage of a kid pulling on his Reeboks: As soon as the shoes are on his feet, the screen goes to color, and he suddenly becomes Mr. Cool, soaking up the glamorous life.
While LITTLE x has an incredible amount of input when it comes to the concepts for his music videos, his creative input on ads varies from job to job. "I’ve done jobs where they come to you with a storyboard, and they say, ‘Shoot this,’ which I’m fine with," he notes. "And then I’ve also done the jobs where they’re like, ‘Hey, we kinda, sorta got something, but we don’t know what.’ I do those jobs as well."
In the end, it doesn’t really matter to LITTLE x where a good idea comes from. "At the end of the day, no one knows and no one cares," he observes. "The kid at home who is watching—he doesn’t care whose idea it was for the video. He doesn’t care whose idea it was for the commercial. If he is entertained, he is entertained, and that’s what I want to do: entertain. And if it’s successful, everyone involved reaps the benefits, regardless of whose idea it was."
