Spot production house 11/11 Productions, New York, has signed the Los Angeles-based co-directing team of Riad Galayini and Josh Hayes. The company signed the duo on the strength of a comedic spec reel consisting of "Tonsils" for Haagen Dazs, "Naturally Uncomplicated" for Aquafina, "Guilty" for 800 Flowers.com and "Let It Shine" for Americans for the Arts.
Charlie DiComo, president of 11/11, related that as comedy specialists, Galayini and Hayes "had a little bit different [of a] sense of humor than what I had seen on other comedy reels."
Hayes related that a friend of his at TBWA/Chiat/Day, Los Angeles, suggested that he and Galayini send their reel to 11/11. "It seemed to be a nice mix," said Hayes. "We liked their sensibilities and their attitude. They seem like really good people."
For the past seven years, Hayes has worked as a storyboard artist for commercials and music videos, in addition to television programs such as The West Wing, The X-Files, ER and Mad TV. He also developed key sequences in the feature films Kiss the Girls and Hush. He has boarded around 350 spots, including those for Intel, Budweiser, Levi’s, Coca-Cola, Lexus, MasterCard, Ford, AT&T, Nike, Jack in the Box, Kellogg’s and American Express.
He got his start as a graphic designer and illustrator. He co-founded Stormship Studios, Arlington, Mass., an 11-year-old print and media graphic design studio. As a designer and creative consultant, he has worked with Warner Bros., Disney, 20th Century Fox and Columbia/ TriStar, among others.
Hayes related that he has served as a storyboard artist with a number of top spot helmers, including most of the directors at Santa Monica-based Stiefel & Company (such as director Peter Darley Miller) and director Jonathan David of Los Angeles-based Morton Jankel Zander.
An actor/producer, Galayini made her film directing debut with the ’97 short film Nude Descending, which she produced and co-wrote with James Morrison. Screened at various festivals, the film, which depicted the inner monologue of a nude male model, won the George Melies Cinematography Award (sponsored by Kodak and Allied Independent Lab) in ’98 from the Taos Talking Picture Festival. In ’96, Galayini produced the short Parking (written and directed by James Morrison), which chronicled an angry encounter between two men in a parking garage. That same year, Parking won the audience choice award for best short at Slamdance and the best short award at the Northampton Film Festival.
Galayini first worked with Hayes on Nude Descending, which he storyboarded. "The film was a very visual comedy," said Galayini, "and it received attention from commercial and music video producers. That was the very beginning of us collaborating."
Added Hayes, "It was such a great experience and we clicked so well creatively during that whole process, that when Riad talked to me about the potential of doing spec commercials … it really came at the right time because I’d been thinking about it, too."
The Melies award prizes were film stock and free lab processing, which the pair decided to use to make spec commercials. To finance their effort, Hayes sold his majority interest in Stormship Studios. The team co-directed the specs, which they wrote with the help of agency friends, over a one-week period last year.
"Tonsils," for instance, appears to be a tense dramatic piece involving medical personnel racing around with a ice-packed cooler that presumably holds a body organ to be transplanted. The content of the cooler is revealed to be a container of Haagen Dazs, which is consumed by a young boy after his tonsillectomy. "We don’t do [broad slapstick] humor; we do misdirects and darker, unexpected comedy," said Hayes.
The team joins an 11/11 directorial roster also comprised of David Elliot, Chuck Clemens, Ken Thurlbeck, John Minor and Pavel Salek. The shop’s sales force consists of New York-based Corey Rogers, who coordinates national sales; Chicago-based rep Val Gobos of Gobos Film & Entertainment, and Santa Monica-based rep John Moore of Char & Associates.
Separately, 11/11 has formed a nonexclusive affiliation with Blink fx, a New York-based visual effects, animation and design boutique. The two companies are located in the same building, and have collaborated on recent spots for Eureka vacuum cleaners via Keller Crescent, Evansville, Ind.; and for a Mattel spot advertising its cross-promotion with Airheads candy via Avrett, Free & Ginsberg, New York.
"Because we’re in the same building, [collaborating with them] started out as convenience, but we discovered they have some really great, talented people," said DiComo. "So we’ve been packaging them with a lot of our post and graphics-intensive productions. It works for clients because it becomes like a one-stop shop; they don’t have to worry, ‘Is the production company going to give me what I need when I go into graphics?’ We take on the responsibility of providing clients with whatever they need."
Blink fx’s artists include Hal designer Jim Kottaras, Inferno designer Steve Malone, 3-D/ AfterEffects designer Carlos El Asmar, digital effects supervisor Patricia Heard-Greene and Henry artist Mark Repasky.
