SHOOT debuted its 12th Annual New Directors Showcase reel at the DGA Theatre in NYC last night, followed by a panel discussion moderated by SHOOT publisher and editorial director Roberta Griefer featuring six of the up-and-coming filmmakers as well as feedback and counsel from Don Block, executive producer of GARTNER, and RubenMercadal, sr. film content producer at Ogilvy & Mather, New York.
The 2014 New Directors Showcase consisted of 38 directors–27 individual helmers, four directorial duos and one trio.
Kicking off the evening Showcase event was Laura Belsey representing the DGA. A director spanning TV, features, spots and documentaries,Belsey introduced Griefer to the audience and talked about the importance of the New Directors Showcase as well as the ad industry. She noted that about one-third of new DGA members come from the spotmaking arena and that 14-plus percent of Guild member revenue is generated by commercials. Belsey affirmed that new directors should become members of the Guild which actively protects filmmakers' creative and economic rights. She added that the DGA has varied resources and flexibility when it comes to projects with challenged budgets that should prove valuable to directors breaking into the business.
Griefer then introed the debut screening of the 2014 SHOOT New Directors Showcase reel, which contained a sampling of the work from each Showcase hemer. After the reel presentation, SHOOT held a panel discussion in which six of the directors were paricipants: Logan Hall of ONE at Optimus; Richard Speight Jr. of Quietman; and four directors who are as yet unaffiliated with a production company for commercials and branded content–Bess Kargman; Aaron Kodz; Bryan Reisberg; and Tamara Rosenfeld.
Rosenfeld earned inclusion in part for her short film Lea–City of God, Brazil, for Coca-Cola/5by20. The piece introduces us to an amazing female entrepreneur who has literally "fashioned" a business out of recycled plastic bottles. Rosenfeld shot the piece in the slums of Brazil. She shared with the audience that she has on tap another film for Coca-Cola in Europe which too has a sustainability theme.
Reisberg was selected for the Showcase on the stregth largely of his feature directorial debut, Big Significant Things, which premiered at this year's SXSW Festival in Austin, Texas. He described his SXSW experience as gratifying, providing an invaluabe launch for Big Significant Things which tells the tale of a guy who lies to his girlfriend to go off on a trip by himself through the South to see roadside tourist attractions and oddities.
Kargman gained SHOOT Showcase recognition for her documentary short Coach for ESPN Films, which told the inspiring story of women's basketball coach Vivian Stringer. Kargman was approached by Whoppi Goldberg and ESPN Films to collaborate with them on Coach, which won a Jury Prize at last year's Tribeca Film Festival. Kargman embarked on Coach after the release of her independent feature film First Position which too made its mark on the festival circuit. Kargman noted that she next wants to venture into commercials and branded content.
Kodz made the Showcase grade for "Reach," a spec spot for the Van Cliburn Foundation. Kodz shared that he was drawn to the project as a "great oportunity to tell a story without words" while packing emotional impact. He added that he is next slated to embark on a PSA for My Sister's Place, an organization dedicated to combatting domestic violence and human trafficking. Kodz also has a PSA in the offing dealing with handicapped athletes.
ONE at Optimus' Hall broke into the business as an assistant editor at Optimus, eventually moving into the director's chair. The sense of humor in his ad fare was nurtured and developed in part by his involvement in improv comedy in Chicago. His Showcase piece was "Coffee," a TV spot for Get Covered Illinois which deployed humor to make a case for getting affordable health care. As for his next endeavors, Hall said that he is working on a six-episode web series which taps into his Chicago improv colleagues, that he is currently in post on a music video he directed, and that he's pursuing "a passion project" about remote control car racers in the Midwest.
QuietMan's Speight was chosen for the Showcase in part on the strength of his short film America 101, a tongue-in-cheek look at what's off kilter in society today. Speight made his first mark in filmmaking as an actor, where he got to interact and observe varied directors,including Joe Pytka of PYTKA. Speight performed in some Pytka-directed Pepsi fare which in turn introduced him to VFX auteur Johnnie Semerad of QuietMan. Speight credited both Pytka and Semerad as being supportive of his directorial career with Pytka providing counsel just prior to the production of America 101 and Semarad offering to contribute VFX to the short. Speight then had the happy circumstance of Semerad being the guy who did "this giant favor for me" and then believed in him enough to hire him for the company's roster. Speigt's first official job at QuietMan was a Mountain Dew spot.
Most of the Showcase directors were in attendance at the DGA Theatre. The other directors in the 2014 Showcase were: Rob Adamo of ShootersINC; Ruben Barrientos of Adolescent Content; Alberto Belli of Accomplice Media; Jason Berger of Kids At Play; Jonathan Bregel of Variable; Conor Byrne of Hungry Man; Patrick Clair of elastic; Diego Contreras of Bullitt; Em Cooper of th1ng and film club; Stephen Frandsen of Hero Content; Scott & Jake Friedman of Wildlife; J+J (Jess Zou and Jing Shao) of Untitled, Inc.; David Kestin who's unaffiliated; The Kloons (Mitch Lewis, Greg Washburn, Nik Kazoura) of Click 3X; Lukas Korver of Workhorse Media; Brandon LaGanke of Eyepatch (in-house unit of Ogilvy & Mather); Montana Mann of Seed Media Arts; Ari Merkin of Supply & Demand; Charles Nordeen from Light of Day; Kyle Padilla of Cedar Films; Armen Perian who's unaffiliated; Plummer/Strauss (Justin Plummer III, Martin Strauss), an unaffiliated duo; Romina Schwedler who's unaffiliated; Tank+Bunker (Judah-Lev Dickstein, Justin Liberman) of Greenpoint Pictures; Ben Tedesco of Superlounge; and Arnaud Uyttenhove of Caviar.
To see the SHOOT New Directors Showcase reel and new director profiles, click here. A special SHOOT e.dition featuring the profiles and additional New Directors Showcase coverage will come out next Wednesday (5/28).
Pro insights
Mercadal noted that he is with an agency that has a track record of giving new directors their first big breaks. He cited Ogilvy's work with such emerging directors at the time as Michel Gondry, Jonathan Glazer, Tarsem and Nicolai Fuglsig who have all gone on to star status. What these now luminaries have in common, observed Mercadal, is "a strong identity" and vision which was evident early on in their careers. "A sense of identity and a voice as a director" are crucial to the success of new talent, Mercadal affirmed, adding that he enjoys working with new directors because of the "energy," "passion" and "fresh and new perspective they provide."
As sr. film content producer at Ogilvy NY, Mercadal noted that he often suggests to creatives, "Why don't we put a wild card in the mix?" He observed that creatives taking an hour or so to talk to a young director and giving him or her a chance to do a treatment could yield some pleasant suprises and ideas that can blow you away.
GARTNER's Block has a long track record of developing new directors, including the marquee one for which his production company is named after–DGA Award winner James Gartner. Block recalled first seeing Gartner's work back when he was a creative, directing select projects for a Salt Lake City-based agency (Bonneville). Block flew from L.A. to Park City, Utah, to meet Gartner for lunch and found that the talented young filmmaker didn't want to leave either the agency or Salt Lake City. Undeterred, Block suggested that perhaps Gartner could take a leave of absence whenever he landed the young director a worthwhile project. These initial collaborations led to Gartner later breaking out on his own as a lauded director with a company bearing his name.
Block was able to get Gartner viable work pretty much out of the gate. However, Block recalled that it took him two years to get Gartner a dialogue spot, hard to believe given what is now Gartner's stellar reputation as a dialogue/people director.
The moral to the story, said Block, to the new directors on stage and in the audience is that it's imperative that they find someone who is truly "committed" to them and their work. Finding a home, a place which believes in you and is invested in you for "a long-distance run" is essential, he affirmed.
An afterparty, downstairs at the DGA Theatre, followed the New Directors Showcase screening and panel discussion.
Directors/Producers Forum
The evening Showcase event followed an afternoon of SHOOT Directors/Producers Forum panel discussions and a Director's Chair session moderated by SHOOT editor Robert Goldrich.
Extensive coverage of the Forum–and more on the New Directors Showcase–will appear in the June print issue of SHOOT.
The Forum proceedings included: a Producer Perspectives panel featuring Matt Bonin, chief production officer at Ogilvy & Mather, New York; Steve Humble, executive VP/managing director of production & development at The Martin Agency in Richmond, VA; Oritte Bendory, executive producer/VP of development at GARTNER; Jackie Kelman Bisbee, founding partner/co-owner of Park Pictures; Scott Franklin, the NY-based executive producer of bicoastal Chromista, the bicoastal commercial production house in whiich director Darren Aronofsky is partnered (Franklin produced such Aronofsky features as Noah, Black Swan and The Wrestler); and Justin Moore-Lewy, co-founder of production company HeLo.
The alluded to In The Directors Chair session featured Michael Cuesta, a two-time DGA Award nominee for his work on Showtime's Homeland (for which he won a Best Drama Emmy Award as series exec producer). Cuesta, who started his career in commercials and now has a window of availability for spots and branded content (via The Artists Company), recently finished directing Kill The Messenger starring Jeremy Renner for Focus Features. Cuesta's other feature directing credits include L.I.E. which was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, 12 and Holding which earned an Independent Spirit Award nomination for the coveted John Casavetes Award, and Roadie which debuted at the 2011Tribeca Film Festival.
And rounding out the Forum agenda was a panel discussion titled Multi-Disciplinary Action: Directors. Panelists were directors Amir Bar-Lev of Chelsea Pictures, Belsey who maintains her own Shadow Pictures, and Tim Piper of Piro; as well as advertising and entertainment attorney Brian Murphy of Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz.
Lead sponsors of the 2014 SHOOT Directors/Producers Forum and New Directors Showcase were harvest, ONE at Optimus and the DGA. Silver sponsors were Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz, Company 3 and Method Studios. Bronze sponsors were GARTNER, Palace Production Center, and U.S. Virgin Island (filmUSVI.com).
Photos from the New Directors Showcase and Directors/Producers Forum can be accessed here.
Audio recordings of the Forum and Showcase sessions can be accessed below (click red button to play file, blue controls volume).
