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:
Andreas Hasle
Roses Are Blue
MSF’s “Human Ball” (produced by Caviar, Belgium)
How did you get into directing?
I knew from an early age it was something I wanted to do. Small projects as a teenager, and then on to film school in the U.K. I started in advertising as a producer though and moved from that to directing.
Why do you want to direct commercials?
Having been on the production side, there is a “must-try-myself” thing about it, but generally I think commercials are a brilliant learning ground because they are so focused. Another advantage is that someone with short attention span like me can handle them really well.
What is your most recent spot project?
I am working on a very quirky campaign for the football World Cup.
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?
I am not picky regarding my medium. As long as the idea is good, I will do anything. I am writing on two very different things for TV right now and there is a feature script lying on my desk begging to be read. With the changes in technology these days I think you have to be able to adapt to a certain extent. I did short films and documentaries in film school and my first jobs were in TV in the UK, so I have tried out a few things already.
What do you think is the best part about being a director?
For me, clearly the fact that the pressure is on me. If the end result is great, I can take a lot of credit. And if it fails, I don’t have to blame anyone else. Of course a very large part of the job is to work well with your team, creatives, client, producers etc., and to get the best out of them as well as yourself. I don’t think I would work very well as a “dictator-director,” although I would quite like to….
What’s the worst part?
Probably the waiting for projects to be confirmed?
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