By Robert Goldrich

There’s an irony to Nanette Burstein’s success, particularly as it evolves in commercials. An accomplished documentary filmmaker with such notable credits as American Teen (winner of the best directing award for a documentary at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival), Burstein diversified into spotmaking via Hungry Man that same year (after stints at Believe Media and Anonymous Content). She selected Hungry Man in part because she was the zig to its zag–a documentarian on a directorial roster known primarily for comedy.
    This translated into her building a commercial directing career with work that tapped into her documentary sensibilities, including Sprint out of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco, and a poignant United States Olympics Committee/Ad Council public service announcement designed to deter teens from steroid use, conceived by a team at TBWAChiatDay, New York. The PSA earned inclusion into SHOOT’s “The Best Work You May Never See” gallery.
    Yet while American Teen segued her into commercialmaking, the documentary–which follows the lives of five teenagers through their senior year of high school in a small Indiana town–also got her noticed by the Hollywood community, which was attracted to her deft touch at connecting with and portraying the youth demographic.
    “Being a woman, a lot of the narrative film scripts sent to me were more for romantic comedies than anything else,” recalled Burstein. One atypical romantic comedy script, though, stood out for the director, which became her feature film debut, the recently released Going the Distance starring Drew Barrymore and Justin Long.
    “I found the script to be more authentic and realistic than the average romantic comedy,” explained Burstein. “Coming from a world where I appreciate authenticity and realism, I gravitated towards the movie. The chance to do a comedy also was appealing. I try to have some lighter comedic moments in my documentaries. But that comes from just being there and trying to capture the gems when people happen to be humorous. You’re not creating the comedy per se. To get the chance to have control over, cast for and create the comedy represented a different, exciting route for me.”
    Burstein described Going the Distance–with Barrymore and Long as bicoastal 30somethings trying to maintain a meaningful romantic relationship despite the geography separating them–as “a sweet, sincere yet funny comedy, with some R-rated humor that has a Knocked Up sensibility to it.”
    This gets us back to that alluded to irony as Burstein returns to commercials–now with a big-ticket comedy under her belt. She is now both the zig and zag at Hungry Man–having demonstrated both documentary and comedic chops. “Going the Distance represents something quite different from what I’ve done before,” she said. “Whether that translates into me being thought of more for some comedy opportunities in advertising remains to be seen. I’d welcome the chance yet I still love doing real people work as well as commercials which need actors to feel like real people.
    While it’s still to be determined what effect Going the Distance will have on her commercialmaking exploits, Burstein noted that her spot experience had a positive impact on her first narrative feature. “One of the most important dynamics was being able to manage a big production. Commercials gave me that experience. When doing documentaries, you have a small crew, tend to use natural light and you try to be as unobtrusive as possible. But in commercials, you’re directing actors, you’re extremely conscious of the style and tone, you’re lighting where the camera goes.
    “This experience was invaluable for me when I walked onto a feature set,” she continued. “In commercials you have to tell a very sharp story in 30 seconds. You think of every tiny choice you’re making to tell the story as sharply, as visually compelling, and if it applies, as humorously as possible. This is a great craft to develop and apply to the scenes in a full-length theatrical motion picture.”
    Additionally, Burstein’s documentarian skills figured prominently in Going the Distance. “You develop an eye and ear for authenticity in the documentary world,” she observed. “You get a sense if real people or actors are being genuine on camera. That helped me to keep the romantic comedy true to the characters’ lives we were trying to capture.”
    Indeed Hollywood seems to be increasingly turning to documentary filmmakers to bring authenticity and emotional truthfulness to fictional narrative films. Burstein said that a factor drawing her to Going the Distance was the orientation of New Line Cinema. “I knew this studio had worked with documentary filmmakers before on features–Seth Gordon [director of the acclaimed documentary The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters] on Four Christmases and he’s doing another film as well. There was a comfort level for me in working with a studio that works and values what documentary filmmakers can bring to a project.”
    Burstein made her first mark as a co-director of documentary fare, teaming with Brett Morgen (now with Anonymous Content for commercials) on The Kid Stays In The Picture (lauded on the festival circuit), and On The Ropes (which received an Oscar nomination and won a DGA Award). Burstein and Morgen were a team out of necessity, having met in film school at NYU and needing to pool their talent and resources in the face of very challenged budgets.
    Then in a natural progression, they went their separate ways to embark on successful solo directing careers, with Burstein’s big splash being American Teen. Prior to that, she created and directed a 10-part series for IFC titled Film School, which followed NYU grad students trying to make their names and calling cards in movies. Burstein also directed Autobiography, a series of portraits of celebs and icons for the AMC network.
    Among Burstein’s most recent commercials, wrapped prior to her embarking on Going the Distance, were a Stouffers campaign as well as repeat biz for Sprint.
    “I casted actors for Stouffers, to capture the feel of a real family,” said Burstein. “I guess the bottom line for me is that no matter if it’s comedy, drama, slice of life, I’m just looking to make it all feel as real and authentic as possible.”

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