4th Annual New Directors Showcase
On May 25, SHOOT unveiled its fourth annual New Directors Showcase reel. The 25 helmers–including three two-person teams–selected for the Showcase come from diverse backgrounds. However, the bond they share is great style, vision and commitment–whether it be reflected in comedy, visuals or storytelling. Helping fashion the Showcase lineup were entries from SHOOT‘s ongoing “The Best Work You May Never See” gallery, assorted submissions, and feedback from agency creatives and producers. Here’s a look at this year’s field:
Lena Beug
Reginald Pike
Reginaldo
AIDS Vancouver’s “Admiral Winky”
Hockey Canada’s “Dirty Shirt”
How did you get into directing?
I worked at MTV in New York in the on-air design department. I realized fairly quickly that I was much more interested in shooting live action than in graphic design. After that I pitched all my projects as shoots instead of animation.
Why do you want to direct commercials?
I get to recreate the world the way I see it. I get to decide who the people are, what they are wearing, where they live and what their houses look like; it’s really fun.
What is your most recent spot project?
I just finished a campaign for BBC TV licensing in London.
Do you have plans to work in other areas–e.g. shorts, films, features or TV? Have you ever done any of that in the past?
Yes, a short film is the first step for me and I had an idea today. I made a few Karaoke videos in the past.
What do you think is the best part about being a director?
Getting to make very short films as a job.
What’s the worst part?
Getting very involved in the treatment and the story until the whole thing works perfectly in your head, and then not getting the job.
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