Creative production agency Avocados and Coconuts has signed director Jeremy McNamara for U.S. representation spanning commercials and branded content. This marks his first official representation.
With a visual documentary-like style, McNamara has trained his lens on campaigns for Clif Bar, Google, Nike SB, California Community Colleges, and Taylor Stitch. In addition, his keen eye for human stories has produced vivid documentary shorts capturing California’s skateboarding parks and neighborhoods, netting him three Vimeo Staff Picks along the way.
“Jeremy has an incredible way with non-narrative subjects and is able to draw a story using the most beautiful brush strokes,” said Dalia Burde, Avocados and Coconuts founder and executive producer. “We felt there was a strong alignment in the stories we want to tell and the deep commitment to craft. It became clear that he should be a more permanent part of the Avocados team.”
McNamara added, I’ve been a fan of Avocados and Coconuts’ work. We had the opportunity to collaborate on two projects last year and experienced such an easy and super-smooth way of working. The whole team is incredibly talented and seasoned, and I’ve seen, firsthand, the kind of support they give to their directors.”
McNamara–a lifelong skateboarder–found his passion for filmmaking through skateboarding, and shooting videos with his friends. After graduating from high school, he went to work for Deluxe, a hard goods skateboarding distributor, where he further developed his skills in filmmaking and storytelling.
Beyond his commercial and branded content work, McNamara has directed and produced several documentaries. He is particularly proud of Carl, a short film about a 53-year-old Iowa man working to get his high school diploma with the help of a free online tutoring program, and specifically, a teenage tutor from California.
“That’s the kind of stuff that I’m interested in,” enthused McNamara. “With my commercial work and personal projects, I like to seek out people and communities that are slightly off the radar or unexpected.”
A lifelong Bay Area resident, McNamara has spent years turning his own passions into beautifully-realized film projects. With a deft eye for natural light, handheld visuals, and stories about overlooked communities, he still remains focused on the work. McNamara often pulls double duty as director and DP on his own projects to get a day in the can.
Currently, McNamara is editing a short documentary project of his own about a female skateboarding pioneer, which seeks to build on the narratives and themes in his acclaimed documentary short The Skatepark on Treasure Island.
Review: Malcolm Washington Makes His Feature Directing Debut With “The Piano Lesson”
An heirloom piano takes on immense significance for one family in 1936 Pittsburgh in August Wilson's "The Piano Lesson." Generational ties also permeate the film adaptation, in which Malcolm Washington follows in his father Denzel Washington's footsteps in helping to bring the entirety of The Pittsburgh Cycle — a series of 10 plays — to the screen.
Malcolm Washington did not start from scratch in his accomplished feature filmmaking debut. He enlisted much of the cast from the recent Broadway revival with Samuel L. Jackson (Doaker Charles), his brother, John David Washington (Boy Willie), Ray Fisher (Lymon) and Michael Potts (Whining Boy). Berniece, played by Danielle Brooks in the play, is now beautifully portrayed by Danielle Deadwyler. With such rich material and a cast for whom it's second nature, it would be hard, one imagines, to go wrong. Jackson's own history with the play goes back to its original run in 1987 when he was Boy Willie.
It's not the simplest thing to make a play feel cinematic, but Malcolm Washington was up to the task. His film opens up the world of the Charles family beyond the living room. In fact, this adaptation, which Washington co-wrote with "Mudbound" screenwriter Virgil Williams, goes beyond Wilson's text and shows us the past and the origins of the intricately engraved piano that's central to all the fuss. It even opens on a big, action-filled set piece in 1911, during which the piano is stolen from a white family's home. Another fleshes out Doaker's monologue in which he explains to the uninitiated, Fisher's Lymon, and the audience, the tortured history of the thing. While it might have been nice to keep the camera on Jackson, such a great, grounding presence throughout, the good news is that he really makes... Read More