SHOOT’s eighth annual New Directors Showcase–which will be celebrated with an evening screening, panel discussion and reception next week (5/11) at the Directors Guild of America (DGA) Theatre in New York–offers a total of 39 helmers filling 32 slots (26 individual directors, five directorial duos, and a three-director collective).
The field of talent is far ranging from unaffiliated newcomers to helmers with an agency creative pedigree to a director whose directorial debut earned Oscar and Independent Spirit Award nominations last year for best documentary.
The latter is Ellen Kuras, an accomplished cinematographer spanning features and commercials, whose feature documentary Nerakhoon (the Lao word for Betrayal) scored the Academy Award and Spirit noms. A couple of months ago, she embarked on a new career chapter, signing with bicoastal Park Pictures for her first representation as a spot director. Kuras has since wrapped her commercial helming debut, a Target assignment for Wieden+Kennedy, Portland, Ore.
Agency pedigree The alluded to advertising agency artisans in this year’s New Directors Showcase lineup include such notables as Bill Bruce of bicoastal/international RSA Films, Jeff Bitsack of Humble, New York, Jason Zada of bicoastal Tool of North America, and Andrew Tucci who is still on the agency side as executive producer at Publicis, New York.
Bruce joined RSA last month, exiting his position as chairman/chief creative officer at BBDO New York, which had been his professional roost for some 23 years. Bruce is no stranger to RSA, having not only collaborated on projects as a creative with its directors over the years but also helming work through the production house, dating back to his directorial debut in October 2009: a web film for New Balance titled Feet On Head, out of BBDO. This was one of the entries that contributed to Bruce landing a slot in SHOOT’s New Directors Showcase.
The New Balance viral film–based on an idea from the core BBDO creative team of art director Cesar Finamori and copywriter Avital Pinchevsky–showed Bruce’s comedic chops as well as his ability to work with someone else’s concept. The short opens on a New York street scene. Bobbing up and down in this crowd of humanity is a curious sight–what appears to be a pair of feet at head level with other pedestrians. Eventually we get an eyeful of the oddity–a jogger with feet coming out of his head.
As he makes his way through spacious Central Park, even several jaded seen-it-all New Yorkers take puzzled notice. At one point the jogger tries to get water from a drinking fountain but his feet get in the way, rendering him unable to reach the faucet. He continues his run, the destination being the local hospital.
Next we see an X-ray view of the runner’s head with feet attached, and find him laid out on an emergency room operating table. A surgeon and his team get to work, having assorted medical instruments at their disposal–as well as a Brannock measurer, the metal device seen in most shoe stores to measure foot size and width.
A few incisions and snips successfully remove the runner’s old shoes, which are then replaced with a proper-sized pair of New Balance running shoes. Suddenly the patient is back to normal with feet no longer attached to his head. He leaves to find a waiting room full of other runners with feet literally on their minds.
A parting super simply reads, “Think about your run. Not your feet,” followed by an end tag carrying the New Balance logo.
Meanwhile Bitsack, whose most recent agency staff role was as executive creative director at Euro RSCG, New York, joined Humble last year for exclusive representation as a director. He earlier served as executive creative director at JWT New York. Bitsack also logged time as a writer and/or creative director at top agencies, including Wieden+Kennedy in both Portland and New York, as well as New York shops Cliff Freeman & Partners, Merkley & Partners, Ogilvy & Mather, Toy, BBH, and BBDO.
Bitsacks’ creative endeavors have garnered numerous awards, including One Show pencils, Design & Art Direction (D&AD) pencils, Communication Arts honors, a Grand Clio and several cubes from the Art Directors Club.
He also had a creative hand in a Mercedes spot, “Aaooga” out of Merkley Newman Harty, which garnered a primetime commercial Emmy Award nomination in 2001. Bitsack was a copywriter on “Aooga,” which was directed by Victor Garcia via production house MJZ.
For the SHOOT Showcase, several Bitsack-directed entries gained judges’ attention, including “Jimmie’s Garage” for Lowe’s.
Tool’s Zada made his creative mark at San Francisco-based EVB, an interactive agency which he co-founded with CEO Daniel Stein in 2000. (Omnicom bought a majority stake in the shop in ’06.)
For eight years, Zada served as EVB’s executive creative director, creating online experiences for major advertisers such as adidas, 2K Sports, Levi’s, JCPenney, Wrigley, Old Spice and Office Max. For the latter, Zada created and directed the “Elf Yourself” viral campaign, which generated hundreds of millions of online hits, gaining an unlikely place in pop culture.
Helping Zada land a slot in this year’s New Directors Showcase was his piece of alternative media content, “The Last Advertising Agency On Earth,” for client FITC.
And Publicis’ Tucci scored with New Directors Showcase judges via a tongue-in-cheek rap web video “Bring It” for client Bounty. Tucci directed the clip, which was run through production house Brainwash Films, Los Angeles, while also serving as exec producer on the job for Publicis.
Sans roosts Six of the Showcase directors don’t have a commercial production company affiliation.
They are: Tucci; Marie Dvorakova from Tisch School of the Arts, NYU (The Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Steenbeck Story short spec film); Ian Allen Lim (for the short film Annie); Eric D. Howell (for the short film Ana’s Playground); Oliver Power (for his short film entitled Mi Kasa Su Kasa); and Peter Rhoads (Trojan Condoms’ “Trojan Wallet” alternative media content).
Teamwork
Directorial teams also made their mark on the 8th annual SHOOT Showcase, including: Mark & Louis (Mark Albiston, Louis Sutherland) of The Sweet Shop, Auckland, N.Z., for their lauded short film Six Dollar Fifty Man; Andersen M. Studio (Martin and Line Andersen) of U.K.’s Broadway Films for New Zealand Book Council’s “Going West” alternative media content; D.A.R.Y.L. (Ed Lovelace, James Hall) of bicoastal Pulse@Chelsea for MySpace.com’s “Get Real Close” alternative media content; AB/CD/CD (Arnaud Boutin, Camille Dauteuille, Clement Dozier) for its Lilly Allen music video “Fuck You Very Much”; Aaron Brown and Ben Chappell (a.k.a. Focus Creeps) of Foundation Content, Chicago and Santa Monica, for Cass McCombs’ “Dream Come True Girl” music video; and Kris Belman and Scott Balcerek of Caviar, Venice, Calif., for Gatorade’s “Replay” web series/alternative media content.
The integrated “Replay” campaign out of TBWAChiatDay, Los Angeles, last month won The GRANDY, the Best of Show honor at the International ANDY Awards. The “Replay” concept grew out of the fact that only three in 10 adults over the age of 30 exercise regularly. The campaign was designed to reignite the athletic spark for those in this age group, allowing them to prove that “once an athlete, always an athlete.”
The event-driven campaign leveraged Gatorade’s ability to fuel a second chance for high school players to reunite on their teams and replay the biggest high school game of their lives–15 years later. “Replay” originated with an online, five-episode documentary film in spring 2009, followed by a documentary television series that launched in the fall on Fox Sports Net.
In addition, a high-profile publicity push helped to generate some 154 million online impressions and widespread word-of-mouth. “Replay” also scored Gold in a new ANDY category, Earned Media.
Balance of lineup
Rounding out the 2010 SHOOT New Directors Showcase are:
• Alex Beh from ONE at Optimus, Chicago/Santa Monica, for his short film Babe.
• John J. Budion of Click 3X, New York, for E*Trade’s “Lottery.”
• Joe Burrascano of Nathan Love, New York, for Pop Secret’s animated “Dark Knight.”
• “JD” Joe Daniele of Cineshooter, LLC, for the anti-smoking spec commercial “Final Nail”
• Gregory de Maria of Resident, New York, for London band Chew Lips’ “Slick” music video.
• Shane Drake of Wild Plum, Venice, Calif., for the Altoids’ spec spot “Man Conditioner.”
• Varda Hardy, who recently signed with CurrentContentCreation, Los Angeles, for her Rock for Equality.org’s “What Kind of Planet Are We On? alternative media content.
• Michael Langan of bicoastal Mekanism for Ann Arbor Film Festival’s “Road Trip.”
• Dennis Liu of bicoastal/international @radical.media for Microsoft’s “Office 2010,” a piece of alternative media content.
• Hiro Murai of bicoastal/international Partizan for Nokia’s “Ovi” branded content.
• Casey Neistat of bicostal/international HSI Productions for the alternatve media content piece titled “An Emasculating Truth.”
• Sam O’Hare of Aero Film, Santa Monica, for his short film homage to New York, The Sandpit.
• Seyi Peter-Thomas of MTV for his piece of MTV On-Air Promos’ branded content, the musical extravaganza “VMA Side Story.”
• Jessica Sanders of bicoastal Epoch Films for Sony’s “make.believe” piece of self-portrait alternative media content. (Producing the project was Sanders’ spot roost at the time, bicoastal Nonfiction Unlimited.)
• Ezra J. Stanley of AboveGrey Pictures, Santa Monica, for Levi’s “True Love” spec spot.
• And Cole Webley of Uber Content, Hollywood, for Kodak’s “Memories” spec spot.
Expanded Agenda For the first time, the New Directors Showcase evening event has been expanded to include a daytime Directors Symposium, also on May 11 at the DGA Theatre in NYC.
The two SHOOT Directors events are part of The One Club’s Creative Week NYC (May 10-16) celebrating creativity in all its varied forms throughout New York.
Lead sponsors of the SHOOT events are: Deluxe, DGA, harvest, and ONE at Optimus Silver sponsors are Kodak, Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz, and Arri.
Editors Note: If you would like to attend the 2010 SHOOT 8th Annual New Directors Showcase at the DGA in NYC on the evening of May 11th please click here. For a rundown of 2010 SHOOT New Directors, see the mini-profiles in this issue and visit http://nds.shootonline.com starting May 12 to view all the work and see more Q&As with the directors.
