DPs moving into the director’s chair. Documentarians moving into commercials. Animators enjoying success helming in short and longer form. A music video/spot director making an auspicious feature debut with a self-described “coming-of-age film masquerading as a romantic comedy,” only to now get the chance to break into the blockbuster stratosphere with the next Spider-Man movie.
Mix in the five nominees for the DGA Award as Best Commercial Director of 2009, including the winner of that honor, and you have a taste of our spring 2010 batch of established and emerging directors.
The director on the cusp of Spider-Man is Marc Webb who broke into features with last year’s critically acclaimed (500) Days of Summer.
Meanwhile some directors qualify in more than one of the aforementioned designations. Joaquin Baca-Asay earned his first career DGA nomination while serving as a shining example of a noted DP who several years ago made a graceful transition to directing. Now at Park Pictures, the same company that is home to Baca-Asay, acclaimed spot and feature cinematographer Ellen Kuras breaks into commercial directing, though she is no stranger to directing, having last year garnered a Best Documentary Oscar nomination for Nerakhoon. And then there’s three-time Academy Award-nominated cinematographer Wally Pfister who has broken through as a director via Independent Media.
The documentarians testing the commercialmaking waters are Marina Zenovich who in September won two Emmys–one for directing, the other for writing–on the strength of Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired. Zenovich joined Saville Productions to embark on a spot career. Separately in our Up-And-Coming Directors feature, there’s the LOKI duo whose documentary work has garnered Oscar and Emmy nominations while also scoring on the film festival circuit. LOKI, a.k.a. Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, have secured their first spot representation via Rabbit.
Animators too crop up in both our Profiles and Up-and-Coming coverage, the former being Pete Circuit of The Ebeling Group who earned rave reviews for his direction of Yes, Virginia, a primetime CBS Xmas special for Macy’s and JWT. And the up-and-comer is Emma Lazenby of Aardman Animations whose animation short just won a BAFTA Award.
Our line-up of new directors to watch is quite diverse, including artisans from editing, cinematography, design and VFX backgrounds.
And then our Cinematographers Series looks at Eric Steelberg, DP on Jason Reitman’s Juno and Up in the Air; recent ASC Lifetime Achievement Award winner Caleb Deschanel, ASC; and rising music video and spot lenser Shawn Kim.
So read and enjoy. And as always, we welcome your feedback..
–Robert Goldrich, Editor
rgoldrich@shootonline.com
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