The Directors Guild of America (DGA) has named its nominees for best commercial director of 2007: Dante Ariola, Fredrik Bond, Frank Budgen, Nicolai Fuglsig and Noam Murro.
Ariola, who won the DGA Award last year, Bond and Fuglsig are all with bicoastal/international MJZ. Budgen directs via Gorgeous Enterprises, London, and is handled stateside by bicoastal Anonymous Content. And Murro is with Biscuit Filmworks, Los Angeles.
MJZ’s strong showing continues an impressive DGA Awards run for the company. This marks the fifth time in six years that MJZ has had more than one nominee for the coveted DGA commercial director of the year honor. And scoring three of the five nominees this time around doesn’t even represent the high water mark for the production house. In the competition for the DGA Award recognizing the best director of 2005, MJZ had four of the five nominees (Craig Gillespie, who won the award, Spike Jonze, Rocky Morton and Rupert Sanders). Last year, MJZ had two nominees–Ariola, who won the award, and Tom Kuntz. And MJZ had a pair of nominees for the ’04 (Ariola and Bond) and ’02 honors (Ariola and Gillespie).
MJZ directors have won the DGA Award each of the last two years–Ariola as best director of ’06 and Gillespie for ’05.
Two who take the fifth
This latest DGA nomination represents the fifth of Ariola’s career. He has earned his most recent one on the strength of three commercials: Sony PlayStation 3’s “Grenade” from TBWAChiatDay, Los Angeles, Wrigley’s “Flare” via Energy BBDO, Chicago, and Nike’s “Addicted” from Wieden+Kennedy, Amsterdam.
Meanwhile Biscuit’s Murro has built a most impressive DGA Awards tradition of his own. This marks the fifth time in the last six years that he has been nominated for the DGA honor. Murro won the DGA Award as best commercials director of ’04. This time around, Murro is nominated for: Volkswagen Golf’s “Night Drive” out of DDB London; Orbit Gum’s “Affair” from Energy BBDO Chicago; and the National Basketball Association’s “Remember” for Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco.
Bond, Budgen, Fuglsig While Murro and Ariola are past DGA Award winners, the rest of the field consists of Bond, who has two career nominations, and a pair of first-time DGA Award nominees, Budgen and Fuglsig.
Bond’s latest nomination comes on the basis of the California Milk Processor Board’s “Straw” for Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco, and JC Penney’s “Aviator” from Saatchi & Saatchi New York.
Budgen becomes a DGA Award nominee on the strength of Sony Bravia’s “Playdoh” for Fallon, London (produced by Gorgeous) and Live Earth’s “S.O.S., Save Our Selves” (produced by Anonymous and Gorgeous) via Young & Rubicam, Chicago.
Fuglsig is nominated for Guinness’ “Tipping Point” and Motorola’s “Journey,” both from Abbot Mead Vickers/BBDO London, and JC Penney’s “It’s Magic” out of Saatchi & Saatchi New York.
The DGA Awards are in their 60th year. The DGA opened the annual competition to commercial directors in 1980. This year’s DGA Award winners–spanning theatrical features, TV, documentaries and commercials–will be announced and honored during a gala evening ceremony in Los Angeles on Saturday, January 26.
Among this year’s feature film DGA Award nominees are the Coen Brothers for No Country For Old Men. The Coens are handled for commercials by Company, a Los Angeles-based house headed by executive producer Robin Benson.
Writers of “Conclave,” “Say Nothing” Win Scripter Awards
The authors and screenwriters behind the film โConclaveโ and the series โSay Nothingโ won the 37th-annual USC Libraries Scripter Awards during a black-tie ceremony at USCโs Town and Gown ballroom on Saturday evening (2/22).
The Scripter Awards recognize the yearโs most accomplished adaptations of the written word for the screen, including both feature-length films and episodic series.
Novelist Robert Harris and screenwriter Peter Straughan took home the award for โConclave.โ
In accepting the award, Straughan said, โAdaptation is a really strange process, youโre very much the servant of two masters. In a way itโs an act of betrayal of one master for the other.โ He joked that โYou start off with a book that you love, you read it again and again, and then you end up throwing it over your shoulder,โ crediting author Robert Harris for being โso kind, so generous, so open throughout.โ
In the episodic series category, Joshua Zetumer and Patrick Radden Keefe won for the episode โThe People in the Dirtโ from the limited series โSay Nothing,โ which Zetumer adapted from Keefeโs nonfiction book about the Troubles in Ireland.
Zetumer referenced this yearโs extraordinary group of Scripter finalists, saying โprojects like these reminded me of why I wanted to become a writer when I was sitting in USCโs Leavey Library dreaming of becoming a screenwriter. If you fell in love with movies, or fell in love with TV, chances are you fell in love with something dangerous.โ
Special guest for the evening, actress and producer Jennifer Beals, shared her thoughts on the impact of libraries. โIf ever you are at a loss wondering if there is good in the world,โ she said, โyou have only to go to a... Read More