Tim Matheson–whose directorial career spans varied TV series (Burn Notice, Criminal Minds, the recent pilots for USA’s Covert Affairs and Fox’s The Good Guys) and an ongoing Unilever campaign tailor-made for airing during Mad Men as part of a season-long sponsorship–has joined the roster of Santa Monica-based Aero Film for exclusive representation in commercials.
The Unilever work sprung out of that advertiser’s self-described “reverse upfronts” approach in which brand managers work with media companies to develop ideas on how to best showcase brands across platforms–all well ahead of the annual upfront ad sales market. Unilever, media agency Mindshare and creative/production shop Generate came up with a campaign that weaves six leading Unilever brands–Dove, Breyers, Hellmann’s, Klondike, Suave, and Vaseline–into a storyline centered on fictional circa 1960s’ ad agency Smith Winter Mitchell and its founding creative partners, copywriter Phil Smith and art director Tad Winter. Messrs. Winter and Smith are tasked with developing ad campaigns for each of these brands. We see them in various states of brainstorming, inspired and not-so-inspired creative moments, even in the throes of what turns out to be a mock creative pitch.
The latter was for Klondike in which Smith and Winter look into the camera and take us via storyboard frames through their idea for an engaging, somewhat grandiose commercial. They’re delivering their presentation to a client who is yet unseen. Eventually the camera reveals the “client” to be an office janitor who is seated before them at a conference table and chomping on a Klondike ice cream bar. The janitor says he’d do just about anything for a Klondike and then leaves to continue his cleaning.
The 1960s’ ad mavens at Smith Winter Mitchell are cut from Mad Men entrepreneurial and stylistic cloth, dovetailing nicely with the hit AMC series and thus making the messages a bit more TiVo- and zap-proof. The Unilever spots are not only running during the current fourth season of Mad Men but also online, including on a dedicated YouTube channel (www.youtube.com/smithwinter). Mindshare gravitated towards Matheson to direct the campaign which takes us into the inner workings of this agency from the so-called Golden Age of Advertising era. “We created a period ad agency, but with contemporary Unilever products,” related Matheson.
Lance O’Connor, executive producer at Aero, saw the initial Unilever vignettes on Mad Men and was impressed enough to seek out who directed them. “I saw great direction, location, period, character and dialogue,” assessed O’Connor. His search led to Matheson who turned out to be a long-time friend of fellow Aero partner/exec producer Skip Short. Matheson in turn found Aero and for that matter commercialmaking appealing. The director had contemplated directing spots several times but his acting, producing and directing endeavors for TV had detoured him from exploring ad prospects. Since he found the Unilever experience creatively gratifying and enjoyable, Matheson decided to more proactively go after select commercial work by signing with Aero.
Matheson’s career spans not only directing but also producing and acting. Among Matheson’s other TV show credits as a director are the primetime shows Psych, White Collar, Cold Case, Without A Trace, even an episode of West Wing, a series for which he received two Emmy nominations as an actor. His TV directorial debut was an episode of the acclaimed ensemble drama series St. Elsewhere, which then led to him helming the telefilms Breach of Contract (starring Peter Coyote and Courtney Thome-Smith), and Buried Alive II (in which Matheson starred). Matheson’s exec produced Breach of Contract and served as a producer on multiple episodes of the TV series Cold Case.
Matheson made his first industry splash as an actor, perhaps initially best known for his portrayal of the smooth talking Eric “Otter” Stratton in the box office comedy hit Animal House. His other feature film roles included playing one of the three vigilante cops in Magnum Force, which starred Clint Eastwood as San Francisco police detective Harry Callahan, a.k.a. “Dirty Harry.”
At Aero, Matheson comes aboard a directors’ roster that also includes Klaus Obermeyer, Ken Arlidge, James Mangold, Jason Farrand, Sam O’Hare and Gary McKendry.
Martin Scorsese On “The Saints,” Faith In Filmmaking and His Next Movie
When Martin Scorsese was a child growing up in New York's Little Italy, he would gaze up at the figures he saw around St. Patrick's Old Cathedral. "Who are these people? What is a saint?" Scorsese recalls. "The minute I walk out the door of the cathedral and I don't see any saints. I saw people trying to behave well within a world that was very primal and oppressed by organized crime. As a child, you wonder about the saints: Are they human?" For decades, Scorsese has pondered a project dedicated to the saints. Now, he's finally realized it in "Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints," an eight-part docudrama series debuting Sunday on Fox Nation, the streaming service from Fox News Media. The one-hour episodes, written by Kent Jones and directed by Elizabeth Chomko, each chronicle a saint: Joan of Arc, Francis of Assisi, John the Baptist, Thomas Becket, Mary Magdalene, Moses the Black, Sebastian and Maximillian Kolbe. Joan of Arc kicks off the series on Sunday, with three weekly installments to follow; the last four will stream closer to Easter next year. In naturalistic reenactments followed by brief Scorsese-led discussions with experts, "The Saints" emphasizes that, yes, the saints were very human. They were flawed, imperfect people, which, to Scorsese, only heightens their great sacrifices and gestures of compassion. The Polish priest Kolbe, for example, helped spread antisemitism before, during WWII, sheltering Jews and, ultimately, volunteering to die in the place of a man who had been condemned at Auschwitz. Scorsese, who turns 82 on Sunday, recently met for an interview not long after returning from a trip to his grandfather's hometown in Sicily. He was made an honorary citizen and the experience was still lingering in his mind. Remarks have... Read More