Profiles, Up-And-Comers, Cinematography
By Robert Goldrich
Welcome to SHOOT’s spring Directors Series, featuring profiles of helmers who’ve made an impact on advertising, and a look at promising new talent. Our accompanying Cinematographers Series offers DP feedback on “hybrid filmmaking” and issues related to new technology.
The directorial profiles encompass a wide range. For example, on one hand there’s Craig Gillespie of MJZ who recently won the Directors Guild of America (DGA) Award for best commercial director of 2005. He garnered the honor for the first time in his career after three nominations. Meanwhile, also profiled is Harry Cocciolo, who was part of our up-and-coming directorial mix last year as a longstanding agency creative making the transition to full-time director. Since joining Tool of North America in ’05, Cocciolo has assembled a diverse reel that now makes him worthy of an individual profile.
In our “Fab Five” story on emerging directors, the aforementioned Gillespie also indirectly figures into the equation. Adam Goldstein, a former writer colleague of agency art director Gillespie years ago, now hopes to emulate Gillespie’s successful career path to mainstay director. Goldstein, who exited his senior creative director/copywriter post at BBDO New York earlier this year, has joined RSA Films’ directorial roster.
And keep in mind that the scope of this Directors Series goes beyond the pages in this section. Just cast an eye to our “The Best Work You May Never See” gallery; it was there, for instance, that we first reported on the emergence of Cocciolo. This week the “Best Work” lead entry is a Mountain Dew spec spot, “Foley,” directed by Zack Resnicoff and J.C. Khoury, a.k.a. Zack & J.C. This young team could very well make the grade for inclusion in our next Directors Series–or for that matter, our upcoming, annual New Directors Showcase. This issue, our Showcase event, and every edition of SHOOT reflect our year-round commitment to provide exposure for deserving talent. “Foley” and other work will be available to view in the ScreenWork section of www.shootonline.com and in the pdf version of this issue, beginning Friday afternoon, March 24. So enjoy the issue.
Robert Goldrich, Editor
rgoldrich@shootonline.com
Review: Writer-Director Andrea Arnold’s “Bird”
"Is it too real for ya?" blares in the background of Andrea Arnold's latest film, "Bird," a 12-year-old Bailey (Nykiya Adams) rides with her shirtless, tattoo-covered dad, Bug (Barry Keoghan), on his electric scooter past scenes of poverty in working-class Kent.
The song's question — courtesy of the Irish post-punk band Fontains D.C. — is an acute one for "Bird." Arnold's films ( "American Honey," "Fish Tank") are rigorous in their gritty naturalism. Her fiction films — this is her first in eight years — tend toward bleak, hand-held verité in rough-and-tumble real-world locations. Her last film, "Cow," documented a mother cow separated from her calf on a dairy farm.
Arnold specializes in capturing souls, human and otherwise, in soulless environments. A dream of something more is tantalizing just out of reach. In "American Honey," peace comes to Star (Sasha Lane) only when she submerges underwater.
In "Bird," though, this sense of otherworldly possibility is made flesh, or at least feathery. After a confusing night, Bailey awakens in a field where she encounters a strange figure in a skirt ( Franz Rogowski ) who arrives, like Mary Poppins, with a gust a wind. His name, he says, is Bird. He has a soft sweetness that doesn't otherwise exist in Bailey's hardscrabble and chaotic life.
She's skeptical of him at first, but he keeps lurking about, hovering gull-like on rooftops. He cranes his neck now and again like he's watching out for Bailey. And he does watch out for her, helping Bailey through a hard coming of age: the abusive boyfriend (James Nelson-Joyce) of her mother (Jasmine Jobson); her half brother (Jason Buda) slipping into vigilante violence; her father marrying a new girlfriend.
The introduction of surrealism has... Read More