By Robert Goldrich

Among director Daniel Kleinman’s latest spots is HBO’s “Stork” for BBDO New York in which we see a stork carrying a little bundle of joy, enduring inclement weather and even a confrontation with ravenous wolves during the course of a long, arduous journey. Indeed the stork offers more than just the gift of flight. He nurtures and protects the baby before finally delivering the infant safely at the doorstep of a home where loving parents await.

 We then fast forward to that baby now all grown up as a young man working mindlessly in a dead-end office job. The same stork appears at the office window and sees what’s become of his precious bundle, looks down in disappointment and flies off.

The man too is disappointed, embarrassed at his lot in life which hits home for him at the sight of the stork. He realizes that he can do better, at which point a Monster.com logo appears accompanied by the slogan, “Your calling is calling.”

Kleinman helmed “Stork” via Rattling Stick, the London production house that he and director Ringan Ledwidge formed nearly two years ago. But if that very special delivery job came a month or two later, it might instead have been produced or at least co-produced by bicoastal Epoch Films. That’s because Rattling Stick has since entered into an alliance with Epoch Films, gaining U.S. production support and representation (SHOOT, 2/22).

This marks the first time in some five years that Kleinman has had an actual production house roost stateside. His last such affiliation was with the now defunct Ritts/Hayden Films, a fruitful relationship that ended shortly after director Herb Ritts’ death in December 2002. Back then Kleinman was partnered in London-based Spectre.

“I just felt the time was right for Rattling Stick to have a relationship with a U.S. production house–not only for myself since I do a number of American jobs each year but also for Ringan Ledwidge as well as the younger, established directors we’ve expanded with at the company,” says Kleinman.

During the interim between Ritts/Hayden and Epoch, Kleinman had independent representation in the U.S.–but he, Ledwidge and Rattling Stick president Johnnie Frankel decided they needed to elevate their company’s profile stateside and thus gravitated toward Epoch, which is headed by founder/executive producer Mindy Goldberg and executive producer/partner Jerry Solomon.

This stronger commitment to the U.S. market seems like a natural progression to Kleinman who took the same organic path to forming Rattling Stick. “Over the years by default I kind of ended up in places that had been taken over by or merged with somebody else,” relates Kleinman, alluding in part to his roost after Spectre, the former London house Large, which for him became “too big, unwieldy and faceless.”  He yearned for a smaller boutique presence, leading him to start London-based Kleinman Productions and then when he desired some controlled growth to encompass other directors, he and Ledwidge teamed to launch Rattling Stick.

“Ringan and I wanted a directors’ cooperative-type scenario and it’s worked out well,” observes Kleinman who feels the extra Epoch dimension will uncover additional opportunities for the Rattling Stick roster.

Global reach
Kleinman’s filmmaking opportunities span the globe. While the lion’s share of his work comes from the U.K. agency market, he’s also managed to draw work from the U.S. and recently his first South American agency job, a Lux Soap commercial for Buenos Aires agency Santo, which entailed him collaborating extensively with visual effects house Framestore-CFC, London.

“Lux is the first spot I’ve ever directed where I haven’t shot anything at all,” relates Kleinman. “It was all created in a computer–and a fascinating experience for me as a director to do justice to a story basically through the use of neon signs.”

Other recent endeavors for Kleinman include a Nissan spot for TBWA/London in which city buildings come to life and play with–and then bash around–a car. “It’s a pretty mad concept that resulted in work I like quite a bit,” assesses the director who also just wrapped a P.G. Tips tea commercial out of Mother, London, which is fraught with offbeat U.K. humor.

In many respects this recent spate of activity is a microcosm of the wide range of work–comedy, visual effects, dialogue, narrative–that has marked Kleinman’s career for many years. He has managed to avoid the pigeon holing that has plagued so many directors.

“I focus on the idea and if the idea is good, I’ll do the job,” he says. “I’ve been very fortunate that ad agency creative people have entrusted me with a lot of good ideas so I’ve been able to take on a great variety of work. I’ve pretty much kept my head down, worked hard and built my reputation that way rather than kind of suddenly becoming flavor of the month.”

Kleinman’s directorial career spans 25 years, during which his work has garnered assorted awards, among the notable being the Cannes Grand Prix in 2006 for Guinness “noitulovE” out of AMV BBDO, London, and recent multiple kudos for Smirnoff’s “Sea” via JWT, London, not to mention past kudos for such classic fare as the poignant “Ventriloquist” for the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.

Artful helmer
His formal education coming in the visual arts, Kleinman graduated from Hornsea College of Art, London, and began working as a commercial artist. In the early 1980s he found work as a storyboard artist and music video script writer at London studio Limelight and by ’83 he made his directorial debut with a clip for Heaven 17 entitled “Wheels of Industry.”

Kleinman went on to direct numerous music videos and then diversified successfully into commercials. “Music videos represented a great way to learn and experiment and definitely helped me immeasurably in my development as a filmmaker,” he says.

Now, though, music videos are a distant memory in terms of his filmmaking exploits. “I kind of fell out of love with the music, becoming disappointed with the quality of some of the songs that came to me.”

For him the substitute for videos came when he began directing the opening title sequences for the James Bond films, starting with Golden Eye and still going strong, spanning such movies as The World Is Not Enough, Tomorrow Never Dies and most recently Casino Royale. “I’ve been directing the Bond titles for the past 10 years or so and they are just like music videos–except without the bands.”

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