Hoytyboy Pictures has signed director Eric Steinman for exclusive commercial representation in the U.S. He has already booked his first job under the Hoytyboy banner, a project slated to shoot in mid-December promoting an undisclosed client for Young & Rubicam, New York.
The Y&R job is line with Steinman’s desire to get back to the American ad arena. “I want to get re-entrenched in this country, after having done numerous international spot campaigns the past two years,” he said. Steinman was referring to commercials recently completed in Milan, Singapore and Moscow.
Although the director is known more for comedic dialogue, Steinman points to more humanity-centric spots as part of his repertoire. “Casting, timing, performance, detail and design are constants in my work,” he said. Recent projects in the U.S. include work for Florida Power and Light (out of agency Machado/Garcia/Serra, Miami) and a pharmaceutical campaign for Zostavax (via DDB New York).
Steinman started in the business on the agency side, making his first mark as a copywriter at now defunct Allen & Dorward, San Francisco (the predecessor to such former Bay Area shops as Chiat/Day/Mojo and Goldberg Moser O’Neill). From there, he migrated to Young & Rubicam, New York, where he spent four years writing for varied clients, including AT&T. Next came three years at BBDO New York, where Steinman’s reputation as a creative blossomed on accounts like Pepsi, HBO and Pizza Hut.
He then moved over to the production house side as a full fledged director, working out of such shops as GARTNER, Headquarters, Trio Films and most recently Crossroads. Over the years he has helmed campaigns for such clients as Sony, Mazda, Citigold and LG. Steinman-directed spots for Astro Mobile garnered a Silver at the London International Awards and were shortlisted at the 2008 Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival. He also directed award-winning PSAs for Big Brothers of America and the Partnership for a Drug Free America.
The Big Brothers work was originally a spec piece he directed while on staff at BBDO New York. The PSA went on to gain regional air time and was initially honored in the spec category of the AICP Show in ’94, the first year in which that competition recognized spec fare.
Steinman joins a Hoytyboy directorial roster that includes Steve “Spaz” Williams, Richard Kizu-Blair, John Kricfalusi, Rob Schneider and animation house Little Fluffy Clouds. Clint Goldman is Hoytyboy’s exec producer.
Writers of “Conclave,” “Say Nothing” Win Scripter Awards
The authors and screenwriters behind the film “Conclave” and the series “Say Nothing” won the 37th-annual USC Libraries Scripter Awards during a black-tie ceremony at USC’s Town and Gown ballroom on Saturday evening (2/22).
The Scripter Awards recognize the year’s 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 “Conclave.”
In accepting the award, Straughan said, “Adaptation is a really strange process, you’re very much the servant of two masters. In a way it’s an act of betrayal of one master for the other.” He joked that “You start off with a book that you love, you read it again and again, and then you end up throwing it over your shoulder,” crediting author Robert Harris for being “so kind, so generous, so open throughout.”
In the episodic series category, Joshua Zetumer and Patrick Radden Keefe won for the episode “The People in the Dirt” from the limited series “Say Nothing,” which Zetumer adapted from Keefe’s nonfiction book about the Troubles in Ireland.
Zetumer referenced this year’s extraordinary group of Scripter finalists, saying “projects like these reminded me of why I wanted to become a writer when I was sitting in USC’s 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.”
Special guest for the evening, actress and producer Jennifer Beals, shared her thoughts on the impact of libraries. “If ever you are at a loss wondering if there is good in the world,” she said, “you have only to go to a... Read More