Bryan Buckley of bicoastal/international hungry man has been named best commercial director of ’99 by the Directors Guild of America (DGA). He won the coveted award on the strength of four entries: E* Trade’s "TriMount Studios" and "Broker" out of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco; OnHealth.com’s "Friends" via TBWA/Chiat/Day, Los Angeles; and Monster.com’s "When I Grow Up" for Mullen, Wenham, Mass.
Buckley was on hand to receive the honor at this past Saturday’s (3/11) DGA Awards ceremony in Los Angeles. In brief acceptance remarks before a capacity audience of around 1,600 in the Century Plaza Hotel’s L.A. Ballroom, Buckley thanked his wife for her love and support over the years. He also expressed gratitude to the DGA for giving him and his wife a rare "weekend away from the kids."
Shortly thereafter, SHOOT caught up with Buckley backstage. He described winning the award as being "an unbelievable thrill. … You look at the company you’re with—the guys who were nominated this year are very strong; not only very talented, but really nice guys. My feeling is that just being nominated is the thrill. Who knows who’s going to win? But to get the nomination is the achievement. It’s an honor to be judged by your peers this way."
Buckley’s fellow directorial nominees this year were: Leslie Dektor of Dektor Film, Hollywood; Rocky Morton of Morton Jankel Zander, Los Angeles; Dewey Nicks of bicoastal Epoch Films; and the directing team of Adam Cameron and Simon Cole, a.k.a. Joe Public, of bicoastal Headquarters.
Buckley, Joe Public and Nicks were first-time DGA spot nominees. Morton received his second consecutive nomination. Dektor is an 11-time nominee, and won the DGA Award for best commercial director in ’92.
Last month (SHOOT, 2/18, p. 1), after he was nominated for the honor, Buckley told SHOOT that there was "definitely a rationale" behind the body of work he selected for DGA consideration "Obviously, people come to me for humor," he said. "I tried to submit a range that would show that the humor wasn’t a one-trick pony. There was a spoof spot ["TriMount Studios"] and there was, in a sense, a more serious spot for the same advertiser ["Broker"], that in some respects was sad—yet funny for those of us with twisted minds.
"The Monster.com spot had a visual style that I worked very hard at," continued Buckley. "I wanted it to break out from other [’99] Super Bowl commercials, to make the spot feel big, yet retain a simple postcard feel. And the OnHealth.com spot was perhaps closest to a documentary style of filmmaking."
The DGA also honored Sam Mendes as best feature director of ’99 for American Beauty. Each theatrical film nominee addressed the awards ceremony gathering, including Spike Jonze, who earned the nod for his feature-directing debut, Being John Malkovich. Jonze first established himself in spots and music videos, and recently extended his contract with bicoastal/international Satellite, where he will continue his involvement in both those disciplines (SHOOT, 2/18, p. 1).
In his brief remarks, Jonze thanked assorted members of his support team on Being John Malkovich, many of whom are familiar names in the commercial arena. Among them are DP Lance Accord, editor Eric Zumbrunnen of Venice, Calif.-based Spot Welders, Jonze’s longtime producer Vincent Landay (who also recently re-upped with Satellite), and producer Steve Golin (who now heads up bicoastal film company 8Media, which recently changed the name of its commercial operation to Anonymous).
