By A SHOOT Staff Report

An editor making his directorial debut with a short film that has scored in the festival marketplace.  

An acclaimed cinematographer settling into the director’s chair for the first time in his career.
    A designer who initially made films reflecting architects’ visions for planned buildings, then segued into visual effects spanning spots, videos and films, and now is making inroads as a director with a short film providing a distinctive perspective on New York City.
    An animation artist and designer who directed a short that recently earned a coveted BAFTA Award.
    And a lauded documentary filmmaking duo looking to make its first foray into the advertising discipline.
    This is the mix represented in SHOOT’s spring 2010 installment of the ongoing Up-and-Coming Directors series. While each has taken a different pathway leading to the commercialmaking altar, they share the common bond of inspiration, aspiration and talent. Here are their stories:

LOKI
    In Norse mythology, Loki, the brother of Thor, is the god of mischief and troublemaking. So when Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady thought about a slightly tongue-in-cheek moniker for themselves as a directing team–and for their New York-based documentary filmmaking studio–LOKI felt like a natural choice. Indeed their work has stirred the pot, with documentaries that provide access into otherwise hidden worlds and share an honest approach to delicate subject matter, making a mark on audiences as well as the award show and festival circuits.
    The LOKI duo is currently in development on Detroit Hustles Harder, a documentary centered on people who are committed to and are persevering in Detroit, hoping to keep the Motor City afloat.
    The directors are also part of a team of noted filmmakers adapting the best selling book Freakonomics into a feature-length documentary. LOKI wrapped its 20-minute film adaptation of a chapter in the book revolving around teenagers who are being paid to get good grades in school. Also charged with translating different chapters of the book to film are documentarians Alex Gibney (Taxi to the Dark Side), Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me) and Eugene Jarecki (Why We Fight). Directing the interstitial glue that will mesh these chapters into a unified film is Seth Gordon (The King of Kong). That Freakonomics film is slated to debut at next month’s Tribeca Film Festival.
    Back in January, LOKI’s documentary 12th & Delaware–a powerful look at the abortion-rights controversy and how it affects one community on a daily basis–premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and will be broadcast on HBO this summer. The directing team’s body of work over the years also includes: Jesus Camp, a look at Pentecostal children in America, which earned an Academy Award nomination for best feature documentary in 2007; the Emmy-nominated The Boys of Baraka, a film about struggling preteens in Baltimore that was distributed by Thinkfilm and broadcast on PBS’ POV series; a recently wrapped documentary on the youth of Saudi Arabia which is scheduled to run on MTV in May; and television work that has explored such subjects as the criminally insane, ritualistic body piercing, even the plight of an aging rock star. LOKI’s work has been seen on such networks as CBS, A&E, PBS, VH1, Al Jazeera, Channel 4 and Canal Plus.
    Recently Ewing and Grady–who initially teamed on a Scientology documentary before launching their own LOKI Films studio in ’01– secured their first career spot representation, signing with New York-based production house Rabbit. Grady said the more immediate gratification of commercialmaking appeals to her. “Our documentary projects typically take between a year and five years,” she related. “There’s something really refreshing and liberating about starting and finishing a project in a month.”
    Ewing observed that LOKI’s style often encompassing cinema verite documentary filmmaking doesn’t afford the directors many controlled situations. “To have a greater degree of control in shooting situations offers a new opportunity and is quite tantalizing for us,” she said. “You want to work different muscles as a filmmaker.”
    Though they haven’t yet done any commercials, LOKI is no stranger to shorter format fare. Grady said they whetted their appetite for spots with short films for the CNN Heroes awards show each of the past two years. In both ’08 and ’09, LOKI directed a pair of two-minute pieces profiling real-life heroes who are contributing to the betterment of the world.
    For example, LOKI profiled Liz McCartney who saw TV coverage of Hurricane Katrina’s devastating impact on people in the region. She then upped and left her home in Washington, D.C., and headed to Louisiana to help, starting an organization at St. Bernard Parish, a community located just outside New Orleans.
    Galvanizing her friends, acquaintances and other volunteers, McCartney has led the St. Bernard Project which has rebuilt one by one the homes of more than 120 families.
    “It was a great experience to direct an emotional profile of McCartney, distilling her essence down to two minutes,” related Grady.
    Of LOKI’s decision to now extend their reach into commercialmaking and perhaps other forms of branded content, Ewing assessed, “The timing seems right. A lot of advertising is trying to recreate real life, real conversation, the feeling of being alive. The spirit of documentary filmmaking goes hand in hand with that, trying to create something authentic that people can relate to.”

Emma Lazenby
    Emma Lazenby is just starting out as a director but you wouldn’t know it from a recent accomplishment in her young helming career. Last month her short film Mother of Many won a British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Award in the Best Short Animation category. A BAFTA honor is generally regarded as the U.K. counterpart to America’s Oscar.
    Mother of Many was a labor–no pun intended–of love, paying homage to the profession of Lazenby’s mom who was a midwife for nearly 30 years and helped to bring some 3,500 new lives into the world. The short film combines such disciplines as painting on glass, hand-drawn animation, Flash and After Effects.
    Lazenby is handled for spots, virals and branded content by Incubator, Aardman Animations‘ unit for new talent. She directs shorts and other projects out of ArthurCox. Both ArthurCox and Aardman are Bristol, U.K.-based studios.
    Produced by Sally Arthur for ArthurCox with funding support from South West Screen, the U.K. Film Council and Channel 4/4mations, Mother of Many moves to a soundtrack of actual childbirths and fetal heartbeats, meshing the rhythms of a baby inside the womb and the working rhythms and daily routines of the midwife calmly helping women through what is a life-changing event.
    Though not nearly so profoundly life changing, the BAFTA win has been a bit of a career changer for Lazenby. Prior to the BAFTA Awards, she was able to earn some local festival exposure for Mother of Many. Now with the BAFTA accomplishment, she said the phone has been ringing off the hook.
    This recognition is also helping to build momentum for another short she has in the offing but isn’t yet at liberty to publicly discuss in detail. Suffice it to say that it is based on helping people cope with a certain kind of medical treatment. The animation short will explain the treatment these patients are about to undergo, providing them with a better handle on the care being given and hopefully in the process putting their minds and hearts at ease.
    Meanwhile Lazenby has also set her sights on getting established in advertising, from spots to branded content. She has done just that during her relatively brief stay at Aardman, directing a viral ad titled “Little Goat” for Nando’s, a restaurant in South Africa with a Portuguese/Mazambique theme. The offbeat spot features a peasant family fattening up a goat for feast day, letting it drink from a veritable bottomless bucket of milk. We then cut to a Nando’s restaurant where the customer is akin to the goat, having access to unlimited soft drink refills but without having to worry about being roasted in that Nando’s has plenty of chickens being fire grilled.
    The viral was made over a two-week span utilizing Flash cut-out and traditional animation, with scanned-in textures and photographs. After Effects was also deployed.
    Lazenby comes from a design and animation background, and lived in a remote part of the Scottish highlands where she made a Gaelic series on 35mm film. She later moved to London where she animated for various leading studios (Nexus, Bermuda Shorts, Sherbet, Trunk) on commercials, pop promos and series before becoming a designer for the charming series Charlie and Lola produced by London-based Tiger Aspect. In ’07, Lazenby relocated to Bristol where she designs, animates and directs for ArthurCox and Aardman. Incubator has just begun to actively represent her as a director.

Rodrigo Prieto    Recently signing with Little Minx for his first representation as a commercials director was Rodrigo Prieto, an Oscar-nominated cinematographer for the Ang Lee-directed Brokeback Mountain and whose lensing credits also include such features as Pedro Almodovar’s Broken Embraces, Alejandro González Iñárritu ‘s Babel and Julie Taymor’s Frida.
    Prieto is experienced in spotmaking, having shot notable commercials that include Ikea’s “Lamp” directed by Spike Jonze and American Airlines’ “New York Minute” helmed by Rupert Sanders.
    Born in Mexico City, Prieto studied at Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica, a leading Mexican film school, and began his career as a still photographer, then a cinematographer on commercials. Concurrently, he moved into features, gaining international acclaim with Academy Award, ASC, BAFTA and Independent Spirit nominations. He’s also been honored with Ariel Awards (Mexico’s equivalent of Oscars) and the Venice Film Festival’s Golden Osella Award. He moved to Los Angeles in 2000 after he shot Iñárritu ‘s breakthrough film, Amores Perros.
    Also among Prieto’s cinematography credits is the Detroit rap film 8 Mile. The movie’s saturated blues and greens and gritty textures stemmed from Prieto and director Curtis Hanson canvassing Detroit for locations and spending a lot of time talking with residents, doing numerous tests for colors and textures, and drawing inspiration from frescos by Detroit Institute of Arts’ Diego Rivera.
    “I had just finished shooting Frida and went to see Diego Rivera’s work in Detroit,” Prieto related. “It ended up being very inspiring for me on the film 8 Mile.”
    More of Prieto’s cinematography is slated to hit the big screen this year, with Oliver Stone’s Wall Street 2 and Iñárritu ‘s Biutiful.
    Prieto’s modus operandi as a cinematographer has been to operate the camera on his movies. He told SHOOT that his prime reason for doing this is to attain “closeness with the actors. It’s like being in the front row of the theater in a way. I’m the first to see their performance and to feel the energy directed towards the camera and lens. I very much enjoy working with actors as a cinematographer. And it’s my interest in actors that motivated my decision to start directing. I’ve wanted to direct actors for a long time. I acted myself back in high school, did some theater. With the experience I’ve had working with such a wide variety of directors and actors on different projects, I thought this could be a good time to start applying that experience to directing my own work.”
    At the same time, Prieto related, “I’m not abandoning shooting. Cinematography is still a passion for me. I will continue to shoot movies and some select commercials. But I see directing as an area that will enable me to grow. Directing spots will add to my filmmaking experience. I want to get involved in all aspects of a project, from actors’ performances to design, visuals and finding creative ways to tell a story, collaborating with [agency] creatives. Directing commercials will afford me that opportunity.”
    He noted that cinematography has given him a window, “an angle, a point of view into when things are working for an actor. All actors are different, but I’ve had a great education when it comes to being able to recognize what works for an actor, how to communicate with actors in ways that help and work for them.”
    Prieto has begun researching a personal documentary film project, a historical account of part of his family. He hopes to develop this as a project that he will eventually direct. Meanwhile, he is open to spot helming opportunities via Little Minx, part of the RSA family.
    Prieto said that Little Minx president Rhea Scott approached him about directing. “She called, we met and there was an instant chemistry,” recalled Prieto. “There’s a warmth, sincerity and understanding there of what I can contribute. I feel that I’m at the right place at the right time to explore new opportunities.”

Sam O’Hare
    Sam O’Hare took a small bite out of the Big Apple in his short film The Sandpit which is featured in this issue’s “The Best Work You May Never See” gallery.
    The film, which captures a day in the life of NYC as seen in miniature, has taken on a viral life of its own (with 260,000 views on Vimeo and counting at press time)–and so too has O’Hare’s directorial career.
    Additionally the short, which O’Hare directed, shot, edited and finished, is gaining other forms of exposure, including a late February screening at The Quarterly Art Soiree at Webster Hall in New York.
    He directed and shot the film in August 2009 but didn’t finish it until early this year because other paying gigs and professional pursuits got in the way–one being his joining the directorial roster of Aero Film, Santa Monica, in September for commercials and branded content.  Already at his new roost he has directed a combo live-action/visual effects job for prescription insomnia remedy Lunesta, depicting a woman surrounded by a boxing ring in the bedroom, a scenario underscoring the battle for sleep.
    O’Hare took a circuitous route to the director’s chair. He studied architecture in England, then moved into the design arena, working on marketing films and animation projects for Uniform, a Liverpool-based design group. The films brought proposed buildings to life, showcasing architectural visions for the structures’ character and purpose to prospective investors, customers and planners. Featuring a mix of live-action elements and fully photoreal CG buildings and environs, the films drew a narrative of the architects’ designs.
    Bitten by the film bug, O’Hare then moved to New York to diversify into commercials, music videos and other film projects. He wrapped several jobs with 1st Avenue Machine as a freelance lead artist and VFX supervisor, including AT&T’s “Spring” and Samsung’s “Hummingbird.” He also worked as a freelancer at TANQ and consulted at other N.Y. studios.
    O’Hare’s mix of work and talent across multiple production disciplines caught the eye of Aero executive producer Lance O’Connor. Citing O’Hare’s prowess in live action, CG, design and visual effects, O’Connor observed, “Agency producers want to do ambitious spot campaigns with the simplest possible pipeline. That makes O’Hare a great fit for Aero.”

Mark Nickelsburg    Mark Nickelsburg is an established editor at New York-based Homestead Editorial where he continues to cut assorted projects, mostly commercials. 
    However, he has now made a foray into directing with Expiration, a short film about a man who courts danger by drinking milk just seconds before its expiration date.
    Expiration was screened at the South by Southwest Film Conference and Festival which runs through Saturday (3/12-20). The short, which Nickelsburg also wrote and edited, debuted last summer as the opening film at the Palm Springs International Short Festival, later winning the Audience Award for best short at the Orlando Film Festival. Expiration has also been screened at numerous other fests, spanning events in Ft. Lauderdale, Los Angeles, Vancouver, B.C., and St. Louis.
    Expiration started out as a spec spot but in developing the project Nickelsburg saw the potential for it becoming a short film so extra footage was shot. Nickelsburg edited both a two-minute short and a :60 spec spot version.
    “The story is comedy but I directed and cut it structurally as a suspense piece,” said Nickelsburg. On the strength of the short, Nickelsburg has landed representation as a director via Miami-based commercial production house Oolala.

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