By Robert Goldrich

LOS ANGELES --

On January 29 at the Directors Guild of America (DGA) Awards gala in Los Angeles, director Jim Jenkins of bicoastal/international Hungry Man will likely see Martin Scorsese again–but under strikingly different circumstances from the time before. Scorsese has been nominated a sixth time for the DGA Award in feature direction, this time for The Aviator. Jenkins meanwhile will be at the awards ceremony as a first-time DGA nominee for best commercial director of the year.

Scorsese and Jenkins worked together in 2003 when the latter directed the former in American Express’ “One Hour Photo,” for Ogilvy & Mather, New York. In the :30,  perfectionist director Scorsese obsesses over photographs he snapped of his nephew’s birthday party. Scorsese finds fault with enough of the pictures to justify a re-shoot.

“He [Scorsese] liked the commercial,” recalled Jenkins, who as a result will be relatively angst-free should he run into the famed feature filmmaker on DGA Awards night.

To be in the same room that night with Scorsese and other gifted directors–particularly his fellow nominees for the DGA commercials award–is an honor unto itself, related Jenkins.

It [the DGA spot nomination] is a little bit overwhelming when you see who you are up against,” he said. “They [the other nominees] are at the pinnacle of what you work for. I’m a big Noam Murro fan. I love the work of Dante Ariola, Fredrik Bond and Andrew Douglas. Being included in the same category with them is a great honor.”

Like Jenkins, Bond of bicoastal/international Morton Jankel Zander (MJZ) and Douglas of bicoastal Anonymous Content are first-time DGA commercial director of the year nominees. Murro of Biscuit Filmworks, Los Angeles, and MJZ’s Ariola have each been nominated three times.

Jenkins’ nomination came on the basis of four spots: Nextel’s “Dance Party” for TBWA/Chiat/Day, New York; TBS’ “Strange Fruit” from Publicis, New York; and Discovery Channel’s “Antlers” and “Milk Truck” via Jenkins’ New York creative perch, nicebigbrains.

As for the rationale behind his submitting these entries for DGA consideration, Jenkins succinctly explained, “I submitted the work I like–it’s no more complicated than that. They were my best ads with the best performance nuances and the best concepts.”

The comedy is wide-ranging, from the layered, intelligent yet offbeat humor of “Strange Fruit” to the silliness of “Dance Party.” But it all comes back to the concepts and the creative talent behind them, noted Jenkins, who cited Nextel’s “Dance Party” as an example.

“Casting contributes a great deal to making the spot funny,” observed Jenkins. “Yet the fact is that I laughed when I saw the script and envisioned those guys dancing ‘on the job.’ You can’t go wrong working with [TBWA/Chiat/Day executive creative director] Gerry Graf.”

 

ANDREW DOUGLAS

For Anonymous Content’s Douglas, being up for consideration as the best commercial director of ’04 also elicited the name of Scorsese. “It seems pretty good to be sitting in the same room as Martin Scorsese,” related Douglas.

“I ordinarily feel tangential to the DGA. It’s like this benign body that pays for your teeth,” he said tongue-in-cheek. “But now I feel included. It’s terribly exciting and rather special to be in the same room with these directors.”

Douglas described himself as being “a big fan of the other nominees.  If I’m hurting for ideas, Dante, Fredrik and Noam are the guys who I would want to steal from,” he quipped.

Douglas received the DGA nomination for Renault’s “Fell It” out of Publicis, London; Pricewaterhouse Coopers’ “The Air” from Hill Holliday Connors Cosmopulos, Boston; Barclay’s “New Day” for Venables, Bell & Partners, San Francisco, and Microsoft’s “Hat” via McCann-Erickson, San Francisco.

Over the past year and a half, Douglas has made a conscious effort to “move away” from the kind of work that he had been doing primarily–visually oriented fare stemming from his industry roots as a cameraman. He decided to instead start pursuing more actor performance-driven spots and humor, simply because as a TV viewer he found himself especially enjoying comedy.

Douglas’ successful shift in focus is reflected in his DGA entries, particularly the three ads with offbeat, idiosyncratic humor:  the Renault spot which shows how G-forces affect people in normal walks of life; Pricewaterhouse Coopers’ “Thin Air” in which a man deals with the waking nightmare of not being able to get out of his office to experience a new world; and Barclay’s “New Day,” which Douglas characterized as having the feel of “an odd action movie,” deriving its humor from exaggerated circumstance. In sharp contrast, Microsoft’s “Hat” is more melodramatic in nature, telling realistic, charming people stories that are affected by intentionally primitive animation.

“There’s something of myself in the work,” observed Douglas. “The creative on all these spots was great, which is essential to getting recognition [at awards shows]. The director, however, needs to take this creative work and up it through his interpretation. Fortunately, I was given the opportunity to do that. I submitted this work [to the DGA competition] because I felt it was a representative portrait of the year I had–the work I was doing and that I wanted to do.”

 

FREDRIK BOND

Rounding out the field of first-time DGA nominees is MJZ’s Bond, who earned distinction on the strength of three European commercials: mobile phone company Three’s “Cherry” and “Jelly Fish” for WCRS, London; and Nike’s “The Other Game” via Wieden+Kennedy, Amsterdam.

Bond becomes the first director to gain a DGA commercial director of the year nomination for a body of work consisting entirely of spots from outside the U.S. This underscores how the DGA competition has opened up to include more international fare. Last year was the first in which the Guild permitted all work directed by members under a DGA agreement–including foreign spots–to be eligible for the commercials award. As it turned out, the DGA honoree for best spot helmer of ’03, David Fincher of Anonymous Content, won for three ads, one of which was a U.K. spot, Xelibri phones’ “Beauty For Sale,” out of Mother, London.

Now, a year later, besides Bond’s three European spot entries, two of Ariola’s three submitted commercials were from outside the  U.S., and Douglas’ aforementioned Renault ad was for Publicis, London.

Of his three entries, Bond said simply, “This was the work I was most proud of–the work that I put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into. These films pushed me and offered me great opportunities to do something fulfilling.”

The Nike spot depicts an offbeat, inspiring, humorous game of soccer on the field–and off. And Three’s commercials are eclectic and intriguingly different, one featuring a singing cherry and the other a dance-inspiring jellyfish.

Of the nomination, Bond reflected, “It’s a great honor to be recognized. Hopefully, it will help in terms of helping me to attract better boards and maybe even opportunities in the feature world.”

 

DANTE ARIOLA

MJZ’s Ariola garnered his third career DGA nod. He was previously nominated for best director of ’00 and ’02. This time his nomination for best spot helmer of ’04 came for Stella Artois’ “Circus” via Lowe, London; Levi’s “Urban Legend” for BBH, New York; and Barclay’s “Money Tree” from BBH, London.

Ariola observed that the nomination is an honor unto itself. “It’s nice no matter what happens [at the awards show]. The night is always a good time. The recognition from your peers means a lot.”

As for his mix of entries, Ariola said they appealed to him on different levels. He characterized Levi’s “Urban Legend” as “a slightly bizarre idea,” depicting a man who takes a pair of Levi’s off of a mannequin at a store–only to have the mannequin stalking him from that point on.

Barclay’s represented a chance for Ariola to work with actors Gary Oldman and Donald Sutherland. The latter tells the story of guy who has a green thumb, enabling him to grow money. Oldman portrays a blue-collar cynic who’s on the receiving end of this tale. “From a writing standpoint, it’s more of a cerebral ad than we’re accustomed to seeing,” said Ariola.

Stella Artois beer takes us to 18^th century France where a villager walks by a circus on his way to the market. He sees lions jumping through a fiery ring, inspiring the man to exhaustingly train a piglet to do the same. Upon returning to the circus setting, he sees Stella being poured in a bar. Next we see him drinking the brew, with the pub’s special of the day being pork. “It’s classic misdirection,” related Ariola. “We treated it like a drama. Comedy is best played straight. In this case, it’s demented humor. You’re shooting Babe but Babe is going to be killed. That strange humor coupled with the chance to do a period piece was a great experience.”

 

NOAM MURRO

Biscuit Filmworks’ Murro holds the distinction of being nominated each of the last three years. He earned his latest nomination for Starbucks’ “Glen” via Fallon, NewYork; adidas’ “Carry” for TBWA/Chiat/Day, San Francisco; and eBay’s “Toy Boat” out of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco.

“My hope is not to be Susan Lucci,” quipped Murro in reference to the daytime soap opera actress who received numerous Emmy nominations over the years without winning, until recently. In a more serious vein, though, Murro said being a DGA nominee is “an incredible honor from your peers. That makes it especially meaningful. I’m grateful and honored.”

    Much of that gratitude, he continued, is for “the [ad agency] people who gave me such great creative. Finding and getting great concepts is not easy.”

MySHOOT Profiles