Director Ante Kovac has joined Lord Danger, a creative production studio at the intersection of entertainment and advertising. Kovac, a Toronto-based visual storyteller and writer, comes aboard the Lord Danger roster with a body of work which includes short form content and commercials for Honda, Dove, KFC, 3M, and BGON, in which storytelling and authentic performances meet a streak of humor.
With BGON’s Junkman, Kovac blended the ridiculous and bittersweet to the notion of being physically overwhelmed by unwanted things. The short branded film was named to The One Show shortlist in 2019 for Film in two categories: Film Under 100K and Branded Entertainment Long Form Video.
“Ante blew us away from the start with his BGON short, Junkman. I saw his work and thought, ah, this is what everyone is trying to do,” said Lord Danger founder/EP Josh Shadid. “He captures naturalism in a high level, cinematic way. Then once we got to know him we saw how enthusiastic, thoughtful, experienced, and hard-working he is–it shows in every spot on his reel.”
Kovac’s entre into directing was sparked by simultaneous exposure to film at university and the Toronto International Film Festival. A former musician who had turned his attention to the craft of music production, this cinematic introduction became an obsession as Kovac consumed massive quantities of film–a staple of his cultural diet to this day. His directing career began in the creative playground of music videos; he then applied his passion for short form narratives as a commercial director, first with UK production company Therapy, and recently with the Canadian production company Animals. Lord Danger becomes the first company to represent Kovac in the U.S.
In addition to short form projects via Lord Danger, Kovac will direct his first feature film, an '80s homage thriller, Coming Soon, in 2020.
From Restoring To Hopefully Preserving Multi-Camera Categories At The Emmys
When Gary Baum, ASC won his fourth career Emmy Award earlier this month, it was especially gratifying in that the honor came in a category--Outstanding Cinematography for a Multi-Camera Half-Hour Series--that had been restored thanks in part to a grass-roots initiative among cinematographers to drum up entries. Last year the category fell by the wayside when not enough multi-camera entries materialized.
In his acceptance speech, Baum appealed to the Television Academy to keep multi-camera categories alive. He later noted to SHOOT that editors also got their multi-camera recognition back in the Emmy competition this year. Baum hopes that after resurrecting multi-camera categories in 2024, such recognition will be preserved for 2025 and beyond.
A major factor in the decline of multi-camera submissions in 2023 was the move of certain children’s and family programming from the primetime Emmy competition to the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences’ (NATAS) Emmy ceremony. For DPs this meant that multi-camera programs last year were reduced to vying for just one primetime nomination slot in the more general Outstanding Cinematography for a Series (Half-Hour) category. It turned out that this single slot was filled in ‘23 by a Baum-lensed episode of How I Met Your Father (Hulu).
Fast forward to this year’s competition and Baum won for another installment of How I Met Your Father--”Okay Fine, It’s A Hurricane,” which turned out to be the series finale. Two of Baum’s Emmy wins over the years have been for How I Met Your Father, and there’s a certain symmetry to them. His initial win for How I Met Your Father was for the pilot in 2022. So he won Emmys for the very first and last... Read More