Directors Frank Samuel and Sam Ciaramitaro have joined New York-headquartered The Sussan Group. Samuel will be based in Los Angeles, while Ciaramitaro will make his home in New York.
"My roster mainly contains international directors, and I was looking to grow talent on the domestic side," explained The Sussan Group executive producer David Sussan.
Before directing commercials, Samuel was an art director/production designer for feature film directors Steven Soderbergh, Chuck Russell and Talia Shire. His work on films, including One Night Stand, The Mask and Underneath, caught the eye of Los Angeles-based Rhythm & Hues Studios commercial director/visual effects artist Richard Taylor (who at the time was with Dryer Taylor Productions, which has since become SunSpots, Hollywood). Taylor then asked Samuel to art direct a Jell-O spot he was shooting.
Through his relationship with Taylor, Samuel became hooked on the idea of directing commercials and shot his own spec spot for Teva sandals called "Temptation," as well as a spec promo for MTV entitled "Monkey Man." Based on that work, Samuel was signed as a commercial director at redBACK films, Venice, Calif., in late ’96 (SHOOT, 1/31/97, p. 7), at which he served a short stint before leaving to freelance direct.
With the production support of Los Angeles-based Scream, freelancer Samuel helmed"Bad Gift Tour" for 1-800-Present through Deutsch, New York, and "Inside Tip" for Blades Snowboards via J. Walter Thompson, New York. The latter led to his signing at bicoastal Bedford Falls, where his credits include two spots for Tire Kingdom entitled "Mosquito" and "Tire Gun" out of DeVito/ Verdi, New York; a spot for Nintendo via Leo Burnett Company, Chicago, called "James Bond 007"; a Mead Notebook commercial entitled "I’ll Go Anywhere" through Partners & Shevack/Wolf, New York (now Wolf Group New York); and Detroit Power & Electric’s "Call Someone" out of Bozell Worldwide, Southfield, Mich. (now FCB Worldwide Detroit, Southfield).
Opting for a smaller outfit, Samuel left Bedford Falls at the end of ’98 and joined the newly launched boutique Vamp Films, Hollywood, under the aegis of executive producer Dodonna Bicknell (SHOOT, 1/8/99, p. 8). Over the course of the year, Samuel most notably directed his second Blades Snowboards spot called "Freezer" out of J. Walter Thompson, New York, in which a youth hops into a freezer in a grocery store’s frozen food section in order to go snowboarding.
Samuel is currently gearing up to shoot his first job with The Sussan Group, a Kellogg’s Raisin Bran spot through J. Walter Thompson, New York. Additionally, he is planning to direct another commercial for Blades Snowboards early next year, also through J. Walter Thompson, New York.
Ciaramitaro is somewhat of a newcomer to the spot world. He began his career as a producer at Leo Burnett Company, Chicago, in ’92 after graduating with a telecommunications degree from Michigan State University, East Lansing, Mich. He left the agency side in ’94 to join Big Deahl Productions, Chicago, where he directed regional spots including "Swimming Woman" for K103 FM via Nerve Inc., Portland, Ore.; The Goodman Theatre’s "Theater for the City" out of Euro RSCG Tatham, Chicago; "Box Jr." for the Museum of Science & Industry in Chicago, and "My Mother’s Daughter" for Family Resource Center, both via Leo Burnett Company.
Seeking a national presence, Ciaramitaro shopped his reel around New York and Los Angeles and finally decided on The Sussan Group. Since joining the company, Ciaramitaro has helmed a spot called "Portraits" for Fieldcrest through Greenberg Advertising, New York.
Samuel and Ciaramitaro join a directorial roster comprised of Marek Dawid, Howard Schatz, Willi Patterson, Bill Marshall and Jorge Rubia. The Sussan Group is repped on the East Coast by Necha Treitel, in the Midwest by Deborah Zwayer, and on the West Coast by Char Noonan.
Tim Burton Discusses His Dread Of AI As An Exhibition of His Work Opens In London
The imagination of Tim Burton has produced ghosts and ghouls, Martians, monsters and misfits — all on display at an exhibition that is opening in London just in time for Halloween.
But you know what really scares him? Artificial intelligence.
Burton said Wednesday that seeing a website that had used AI to blend his drawings with Disney characters "really disturbed me."
"It wasn't an intellectual thought — it was just an internal, visceral feeling," Burton told reporters during a preview of "The World of Tim Burton" exhibition at London's Design Museum. "I looked at those things and I thought, 'Some of these are pretty good.' … (But) it gave me a weird sort of scary feeling inside."
Burton said he thinks AI is unstoppable, because "once you can do it, people will do it." But he scoffed when asked if he'd use the technology in this work.
"To take over the world?" he laughed.
The exhibition reveals Burton to be an analogue artist, who started off as a child in the 1960s experimenting with paints and colored pencils in his suburban Californian home.
"I wasn't, early on, a very verbal person," Burton said. "Drawing was a way of expressing myself."
Decades later, after films including "Edward Scissorhands," "Batman," "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and "Beetlejuice," his ideas still begin with drawing. The exhibition includes 600 items from movie studio collections and Burton's personal archive, and traces those ideas as they advance from sketches through collaboration with set, production and costume designers on the way to the big screen.
London is the exhibition's final stop on a decade-long tour of 14 cities in 11 countries. It has been reconfigured and expanded with 90 new objects for its run in... Read More