Changes At The Helm
Director Alex Winter has joined philsfilms, Venice, Calif. Active in helming commercials for U.K. clients, Winter has had several stateside affiliations in the past, including Hyena Films, New York, Creative Film Management, New York, and now defunct Atherton. His spots credits include directing several installments in Europe’s “Thelma & Louise” commercial series for Peugeot, U.K. market comedy fare for Pringles, BBCi, Weetabix and the National Lottery, and a worldwide Kellogg’s campaign featuring Tony the Tiger as an animated superhero. His U.S. ad endeavors include a Pennsylvania Lottery campaign. Winter is also an accomplished music video helmer, turning out work for Helmet, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Ice Cube and Bootsy Collins, among others. As a writer and director, Winter co-created and starred in the MTV series The Idiot Box, and the 20th Century Fox release Freaked. He also wrote and directed Fever, a psychological thriller starring Henry Thomas, Teri Hatcher, Bill Duke and David O’Hara. Fever was an official selection in the Directors Fortnight at the ’99 Cannes International Film Festival. Currently, Winter is a contributing director of comedy sketches for The Jimmy Kimmel Show on ABC, and is completing a screenplay about the tennis champion sisters, Venus and Serena Williams, for Showtime Networks. Next, Winter is slated to write and direct the Napster movie for MTV Films–In other news at philsfilms, the Russo Brothers directorial duo, Anthony and Joe, has wrapped its first ad project, Canadian Club spots out of Publicis, New York. The Russo Brothers–who last year won an Emmy for outstanding direction of the FOX TV comedy series Arrested Development–recently signed with philsfilms for exclusive commercial representation in North America…..Bicoastal ZoomaZooma has signed director Ryan McFaul, who made quite a splash with his “Gay Boyfriend” music video, which takes a tongue-in-cheek look at the relationship between straight women and gay men. The clip has generated some two million hits on his Web site. Zooma Zooma executive producer Joe Mantegna received the piece as a viral communication and immediately tracked down McFaul, who’s also since diversified into commercials….Director Ben Dawkins has joined Notorious 24:7, a recently launched shop partnering executive producers Jay Boccia and Neale Ferguson of Santa Monica-based production house 24:7 with former Notorious Pictures head of sales Ezra Burke. Notorious 24:7 will pursue spot, music video and long-form advertising projects in domestic and international markets. Dawkins gained recognition last year with an Orange mobile phone campaign produced through Love, London, for agency Mother, London. He has since helmed, designed and animated work for Sony PlayStation2, among others. Dawkins joins a Notorious 24:7 directorial roster that consists of Bent Bonacorso, Ariane Besson, Paul Fedor, Mathew Lamb, Noah Marshall, Joel Peissig, Shaun Severi and Lourens Van Rensberg. In November ’04, Notorious Pictures owner/executive producer Marc Smerling announced that he would be turning his focus to the development of feature projects. Following his ’04 Oscar nomination for producing Capturing the Friedmans, Smerling found that his feature endeavors would require significantly more attention than Notorious could allow. So he encouraged Burke to seek out a new platform for the Notorious directors, leading to the connection with 24:7. Exec producers Boccia, Ferguson and Smerling head up Notorious 24:7, with Burke serving as director of sales and marketing….Flip Films, Los Angeles, has brought directors Roberto Aguilera and Juan Flesca on board. Aguilera has been active in spotmaking in Spain, Mexico and the U.S. Flesca has lived in Spain for the past six years, where his ad credits include a high-profile Ikea campaign…Director Jason Reitman, whose spot roost is Santa Monica-based Tate USA, is currently in production on his feature film directorial debut, Thank You For Smoking, which stars Aaron Eckhart, Robert Duvall, William H. Macy, Katie Holmes, Maria Bello, Sam Elliott, Adam Body, Cameron Bright and JK Simmons. Produced by David O. Sacks’ Room 9 Entertainment, the film is based on Christopher Buckley’s novel, which Reitman has adapted for the screen. The movie chronicles the exploits of Nick Naylor, a chief spokesman for Big Tobacco, who “spins” furiously on behalf of his client. This is coupled with a personal story as Naylor tries to repair a strained relationship with his son. Reitman plans to return to the spotmaking arena via Tate USA after the movie’s completion. His credits include commercials for such clients as Honda, Asics, Nintendo and Kyocera….
