From DGA Awards To The Super Bowl
By Robert Goldrich
When Garth Davis of Anonymous Content earned his first career DGA Award nomination for best commercial director of the year, he knew the honor was significant and hoped it might help to firmly establish him in the stateside market. Though he didn’t end up winning the Directors Guild Award (which went to Tom Kuntz of MJZ), January’s gala DGA ceremony in Los Angeles provided an unexpected additional pleasure and creative impetus.
“I aspire to make a feature film and to hear the stories of the five DGA feature nominees was truly inspiring,” he related. “Their work [Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker, James Cameron for Avatar, Lee Daniels for Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire, Jason Reitman for Up in the Air, and Quentin Tarantino for Inglourious Basterds] was terrific. You felt the close camaraderie of directors at the dinner.
“I also got to mingle with the other commercial nominees and that was a real trip,” continued Davis. “It’s something you don’t normally get to do as a director. I felt a real sense of community among directors. You don’t have an event supporting directors like that in Australia.”
The reference to Down Under is due to it being the market where Davis first made his mark. He continues to be repped there by Exit Films, and in the U.K. by Anonymous@Independent. While his commercialmaking first took flight in Australia, then in the U.K., Davis has seen his American stock rise as of late.
Besides the DGA nomination, he also landed a plum Coca-Cola assignment from an agency with which he has long wanted to collaborate, Wieden+Kennedy, Portland, Ore.
Titled “Sleepwalker,” the commercial debuted during last month’s Super Bowl telecast, depicting a man sleepwalking through the night, unknowingly braving the treacherous, wild plains of Africa to nab an ice cold bottle of Coke.
“I wanted the sleepwalker to feel likeable, real and a bit cinematic. I directed the spot to find its humor in a real human way, which was fun. There were touches like his waving to a leopard as if acknowledging a next door neighbor. But we didn’t go over the top to be funny. The humor just naturally came out of the situation–and I appreciate getting the chance to do it that way, particularly for a Super Bowl spot in which it’s tempting to play things very broad to make sure you get a laugh.”
Similarly, he appreciates the DGA nomination even more because of the spot his peers chose to recognize: U.S. Cellular’s “Shadow Puppets” out of Publicis & Hal Riney, San Francisco. “It’s the kind of work that usually doesn’t get noticed in awards shows,” Davis observed.
The charming commercial depicts a shadow puppet show–with two loving shadow bunnies as the protagonists–against a cityscape. The show brings people in this urban night setting together.
“The direction of the film is very raw and honest. It’s a very pure film that tells a simple engaging, quiet story. This typically isn’t the variety of work that scores in competition. To have your peers judging and recognizing it gives me hope that there’s room for other different types of work.”
Speaking of different work, a longer form content project for Coke out of Publicis Mojo, Sydney, appeared in the offing for Davis at press time. Publicis Mojo was the same agency behind the Davis-directed Toyota commercial “Ninja Kittens,” a SHOOT Top Spot in late 2008 that went on to earn cult status. Rapper Kanye West even posted a link to the commercial on his blog. The spot combines adorable kittens practicing vigorous martial arts maneuvers with head-turning music as the backdrop.
Davis’ other notable ad work over the years includes Toohey’s Extra Dry Beer’s “Tongue,” which took two Golds and a Bronze at AWARD, Australia, and a Gold and Silver Clio, among other awards. In 2008, his Schweppes’ “Burst” commercial earned a Gold Lion at Cannes.
His earlier stateside endeavors included Xbox’s “Cops & Robbers,” which came out of McCann Erickson in San Francisco.
Circuitous route
Davis took a circuitous route to the director’s chair. He originally had no directorial ambitions. His first love was design.
An honors graduate from Swinburn School of Design in Australia, he spent a year at leading design firm Emery Vincent and Associates, then went on to form a collaborative experimental design shop. But the best laid plans…well, you know the story.
“I got my design career really going at a time when graphic design was moving more and more into web-based stuff,” he recalled. “I found that boring. I was into murals and other fine art. I loved design because I found it hands on and immediate–and suddenly it was moving more into the direction of writing code and lingo for web design.”
To satiate his creative needs, Davis began “mucking around with video cameras and software,” turning out experimental videos.
“I was lucky because just about then,” recalled Davis, “experimental designers were becoming a bit of the flavor of the month and started to bleed into the advertising arena.”
Opportunities to direct commercials started to emerge for Davis, initially with a design bent.
“It was great for awhile but I began to change,” related Davis. “My work was highly graphic and stylized back then. Yet I found myself looking for something more. I didn’t want to do another funky camera move in a spot or music video.
“I finally saw the light, realizing that the real trip is storytelling and moving someone emotionally. Style can emerge out of storytelling, which became my goal. I no longer just wanted to do style for style’s sake.”
Gradually Davis began to attract scripts that had a bit more story to them. His work on the storytelling front spawned more such opportunities spanning humor and drama.
Asked how he was able to gain access to more story-driven fare, transitioning from style-based work, Davis explained, “I think you can put out an energy that people can feel. I matured and had changed my attitude which made me able to make the transition–and this change also helped to change perceptions of the agency people I met with. They were open minded enough to give me new opportunities for which I’m grateful.”
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