Slated for June return to spots
By Christine Champagne
While many commercial and music video directors spend their careers jumping ship, chasing new and better production company affiliations, Francis Lawrence has maintained a uniquely stable existence. In fact, he has been with Hollywood’s DNA (David Naylor and Associates) for all of a more than 10-year career.
Lawrence, who grew up in the San Fernando Valley and studied filmmaking at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, remembers sending his reel, which consisted of music videos he had shot with a friend, to DNA and several other production companies when he was just starting out. “DNA was the only place that responded to me and not just responded to my work but responded to me. Nobody else called me back,” Lawrence shares.
Lawrence signed with the production house, and it wasn’t long before he made a big name for himself in the music video arena, with notable clips for Wyclef Jean (“Gone Till November”) and Aerosmith (“I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing”). Lawrence has since gone on to direct music videos for varied artists ranging from Jennifer Lopez to Justin Timberlake, and he has picked up numerous MTV Video Music Awards along the way in addition to the 2002 and 2005 Director of the Year honors from the Music Video Production Association (MVPA).
In the area of advertising, Lawrence has directed spots for high-profile clients such as the as Gap, Diet Coke, Mobil and Bud Light.
Meanwhile, it was just three years ago that the director made Constantine, his first feature film. Based on the Hellblazer comic book series, the film stars Keanu Reeves as a supernatural detective and Rachel Weisz as a policewoman investigating a murder case that entangles them in a world of demons and angels in Los Angeles. Lawrence followed up Constantine with 2007’s I Am Legend, which has Will Smith playing a New York scientist and the last human on Earth after a virus wipes out all of mankind.
After wrapping shooting on I Am Legend last April, then going right into postproduction on the film and a whirlwind publicity tour to promote it, Lawrence had a hiatus from commercialmaking in 2007. While the director notes that he doesn’t get any pressure from DNA to take on spot work when his focus needs to be elsewhere, he and the company are looking forward to his return to the ad arena. But there’s still the matter of a TV pilot project he’s embarked on for NBC.
Titled Kings, Lawrence describes the pilot as “a David and Goliath story” set in a country at war that is ruled by a monarchy. After a brave soldier faces off against a tank, he becomes a national hero and poses a threat to the king, and so the drama unfolds.
Lawrence, who is currently shooting Kings in New York, will stay on as a producer if the pilot gets picked up and will likely direct some of the series episodes.
On the feature film front, Lawrence reports that he has a film called Snow and the Seven, which offers a re-telling of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, in development and would be interested in directing a sequel to I Am Legend if there is one.
Asked when he will be available to direct spots again, the director says he plans to dive back into the commercial world when his schedule frees up in June.
When it comes to spots, Lawrence loves to work with collaborative agencies and swears that he would do anything with frequent collaborator Trey Laird, president and executive creative director of New York’s Laird + Partners. The two have joined forces to work on various campaigns for Gap over the years, starting with the spots fronted by Sarah Jessica Parker and Lenny Kravitz a few years back and continuing through 2006 when Lawrence directed Gap Favorites and Gap Holiday ads.
Explaining why he enjoys working with Laird, Lawrence cites the fact that Laird will call him several times over weeks or even months before a job is to be shot to get his input and exchange ideas. “It isn’t the normal process of get boards, take a shot in the dark, have a conference call, be up against five people, and then jump in,” Lawrence says. “It is a much more creative process.”
The commercials Lawrence has done for Gap tend to be vibrant and fresh. His other spot work, notably the Diet Coke “Loft” spot he directed in 2006, shows a knack for developing worlds infused with magical realism. “I like the idea of magical realism in all kinds of things. The TV pilot I’m doing is like that, and the movies I do are a little like that, and with [Diet Coke] I liked the idea of this guy getting ready for this perfect night out,” Lawrence says.
As we see in “Loft,” which was created by Foote, Cone & Belding, New York, a dashing young guy takes a sip of Diet Coke and proceeds to gracefully dance and practically float around his apartment to the beat of BodyRockers’ “I Like the Way (You Move)” with bubbles surrounding him as he preps for what is clearly going to be a great night out on the town.
The charming fellow truly lights up the screen in “Loft,” and it is this ability to make people pop on film that explains in part why the director has also been so successful in the music video world. But beyond making stars look good in their clips, the director has the ability–when an artist is willing to go there–to create rather complex, emotional scenarios. For example, he has Timberlake making obvious and painful allusions to his failed romance with Britney Spears in the visually arresting and emotionally heart-tugging “Cry Me A River.”
Going forward, Lawrence would like to direct more music videos if his schedule allows and if he can link up with artists like Timberlake that enjoy making music videos and truly throw themselves into the process.
Looking back on his career path, Lawrence notes that he is glad he got much of his training as a filmmaker in music videos simply because he was afforded so much creative control.
Lawrence credits his experience in commercials with continuing his education, teaching him how to effectively work with a client and an advertising agency and better share his vision, which, in turn, set the stage for him to sell himself to Hollywood and become a feature filmmaker.
“I spent probably nine months trying to get Constantine,” he points out, “and a lot of it was meeting with people and convincing them of the vision I had for the movie and putting presentations together, and that’s all stuff I learned about from having done music videos and commercials for years.”
Review: Malcolm Washington Makes His Feature Directing Debut With “The Piano Lesson”
An heirloom piano takes on immense significance for one family in 1936 Pittsburgh in August Wilson's "The Piano Lesson." Generational ties also permeate the film adaptation, in which Malcolm Washington follows in his father Denzel Washington's footsteps in helping to bring the entirety of The Pittsburgh Cycle — a series of 10 plays — to the screen.
Malcolm Washington did not start from scratch in his accomplished feature filmmaking debut. He enlisted much of the cast from the recent Broadway revival with Samuel L. Jackson (Doaker Charles), his brother, John David Washington (Boy Willie), Ray Fisher (Lymon) and Michael Potts (Whining Boy). Berniece, played by Danielle Brooks in the play, is now beautifully portrayed by Danielle Deadwyler. With such rich material and a cast for whom it's second nature, it would be hard, one imagines, to go wrong. Jackson's own history with the play goes back to its original run in 1987 when he was Boy Willie.
It's not the simplest thing to make a play feel cinematic, but Malcolm Washington was up to the task. His film opens up the world of the Charles family beyond the living room. In fact, this adaptation, which Washington co-wrote with "Mudbound" screenwriter Virgil Williams, goes beyond Wilson's text and shows us the past and the origins of the intricately engraved piano that's central to all the fuss. It even opens on a big, action-filled set piece in 1911, during which the piano is stolen from a white family's home. Another fleshes out Doaker's monologue in which he explains to the uninitiated, Fisher's Lymon, and the audience, the tortured history of the thing. While it might have been nice to keep the camera on Jackson, such a great, grounding presence throughout, the good news is that he really makes... Read More