SHOOT's 11th annual New Directors Showcase–which was celebrated with an evening screening, panel discussion and reception on Thursday, May 23, at the DGA Theatre in New York–offers a total of 35 up-and-coming helmers filling 31 slots (27 individual directors and four duos).
The field is far ranging from freelance directors to a helmer whose feature debut played at the recent Tribeca Film Festival, and another who was one of eight selected for the 2012 American Film Institute's Directing Workshop for Women.
The latter is Stephanie Martin who earned inclusion into the New Directors Showcase on the strength of Wild Horses, which tackles the subject of U.S. government involvement in wild horse roundups. Martin is one of those alluded to unaffiliated directors.
Meanwhile the director whose film, Bluebird, opened the World Narrative competition at Tribeca, is Lance Edmands who's repped as a spot director via Washington Square Films. The film shows how even the slightest action can have the most impactful consequences, in this case on a small logging town in Maine. Among the work gaining Edmands inclusion into the SHOOT Showcase was Chevrolet's Bridgeville Episode 3 webisode. Edmands' background includes editing commercials and features such as Lena Dunham's Tiny Furniture.
Speaking of editing, Brian Neaman and Michael Southworth met as assistants at Crew Cuts; they have been editing at Crew Cuts for the past seven-plus years. Under the banner Neaman/Southworth they have broken into the directorial ranks. Helping them earn a slot in the Showcase is MTVx's Inside Joke–Michael Che on Gentrification series.
Unaffiliated
Neaman/Southworth and Martin are three of 16 directors filling 15 slots in the SHOOT Showcase who do not have production company affiliations. The remaining 13 unaffiliated directors are:
Erik Anderson who was selected in part for the Chevrolet spec piece "Heirloom"; Michele Atkins for a Levi's/AFI online spot titled "Back To Basics"; Chuck Blumberg for the ASPCA online spot "Puppies Are Not Toys"; Carmen Chaplin with A Time For Everything, a short for Jaeger LeCoultre; Ellen Houlihan for the spec "Todd Glass For GLSEN"; Ian Kammer with a moving Amnesty International spec PSA entitled Vanish"; Jamie Kingham who scored for a Boys & Girls Club marketing video; Kyle Lavore for the short Up A Hill; James Mann for "Handmade Portrait: Chain Reaction," an ETSY branded content piece; Denis Parchow for the online Steiff spot, "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark"; Stephen Reedy for the short film The Forge; Corydon Wagner for the Ecoimagination.com spec spot, "Capture The Wind"; and Anthony Wilson for a National Domestic Violence Hotline PSA titled "Mistake," which had originally been a spec spot.
Teamwork
The 2013 SHOOT New Directors Showcase included Neaman/Southworth and three other duos: Brewer consisting of Ben and Alex Brewer who are with PRETTYBIRD; Los Perez, aka Tania Verduzco and Adrian Perez, who are with Cortez Brothers; and Mark and Amanda–Mark Pallman and Amanda Speva–of ONE at Optimus.
Production house roosts
Like three of the four directorial duos, there are several individual directors with production company roosts (in addition to the aforementioned Edmands). They are: Olivier Agostini of Kontagious for his Malibu International Film Festival online spot "Endangered Species"; Zach Borst of The Artists Company for Chevrolet's "Happy Grad," a spec spot which wound up running on the 2012 Super Bowl; Ross Ching of A Common Thread for a Popsicle spec ad; Grainger David of Hungry Man for the short The Chair; Ben Liam Jones of Mustard Film Company for an NSPCC/Childline's online spot; Kathleen Lorden of TWC for the Kia Soul spec spot, "Funeral"; Adam Makarenko of FRANK Content for his short Lost; Phillip Montgomery of Anonymous Content whose web film, Raising an Olympian–Henry Cejudo, was part of the ambitious P&G "Thank you, Mom" campaign; Andreas Ohman of ACNE Production for a GE China spot; Gabriel Olson of Station Film for the Chevy spec, "Make A Wish"; Noah Paul of atSwim for The Sins of Kalamazoo, a webisode for Bullett Media; and Aion Velie of Wild Plum for Ford Fiesta's "Moments–Dog Days," a piece of branded content.
Expanded agenda
For the fourth straight year, the New Directors Showcase event has been expanded to include daytime proceedings, a Directors/Producers Forum, also slated for May 23 at the DGA Theatre.
Lead sponsors of the two complementary SHOOT events are: the Directors Guild of America, harvest and ONE at Optimus. Silver sponsors are Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz, Company 3 and Method Studios. And Bronze sponsors are the Nevada Film Office, Light Iron and T3Media.
For a full rundown of directorial talent in the 2013 SHOOT New Directors Showcase, visit nds.shootonline.com to view all the work and see Q&As with the directors.
The SHOOT 2013 11th Annual New Directors Showcase Reel features the following directors:
Look for addtional event coverage in the May 31 SHOOT >e.dition and the June issue of SHOOT Magazine.
