Seed Media Arts has added director Erin Sax to its roster for commercials and branded content.
Roy Skillicorn, owner and EP of Seed, described Sax as “‘a rock star’ in more ways than one.” She not only directs documentary-style spots, branded content, and features but also continues as a singer/songwriter. Sax has toured nationally and internationally with her band, Hands Off My Sister. She has also written and performed songs for motion pictures (Altered Minds, Wanderland and the upcoming documentary series, Resisterhood).
Sax’s directorial exploits span such clients as Stella Artois, Budweiser, Lionsgate, the Nicaraguan Tourist Board, as well as networks including A&E for whom she has painted nuanced portraits of battle rappers, gay ex-convicts, and the Italian mafia among many others. She has worked with Jerusalem Capital Studios, BTRN Belgian Television, and the BBC.
Sax also made a short documentary about American attitudes towards death and dying. She spent six months filming the embalming, dressing and casketing of corpses in a mortuary in San Francisco. “The film ended up being literally a documentation of that because everything else about death in our culture is hidden,” she said. The film is now part of the permanent collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Skillicorn said of Sax, who’s been directing independently the last three years, “Her versatile ability to authentically portray the complexities of her subjects in either instantly impactful shorter or longer drawn out formats is amazing, She is able to quickly put people at ease, delve deep into personal narratives and capture their essence. Each of her stories, from corporation leaders to bank robbers and fishmongers are always compelling and I see her unique talents soon coveted in our ad world.”
Sax got her start as a documentarian for Middle East news and has earned an international reputation for her visually captivating and contextual, uncompromising portraits. A L.A. native, she grew up just down the street from George Harrison, next door to the drug dealer for the Rolling Stones, and was baby-sat by Allan Zavod, the pianist for Jean-Luc Ponty. Sax developed her photographer‘s eye and aesthetic early for she was raised in a home with an active darkroom. Her mother, an actress, also supported herself shooting portraits for artists like Kris Kristofferson, Charo, Arthur Rubinstein and John Rubinstein. There was always a parade of actors, wannabes, and artists, and all were larger than life. It was a colorful upbringing that set the tone for the way she sees the world.
According to Sax, “I’ve long considered myself a closet anthropologist of my own species. Moving through this life, observing, grasping at vignettes, at characters, trying to take it all in and then reflect back to the world what I see – the beauty, the insanity, and the glory of it all. Meeting with Roy, I felt an instant simpatico with the mission of Seed to grab reality and put it in a heightened, elevated frame…they seem to have a real knack for getting people to see differently, to notice details, beauty, complexity in things they might have seen before, but without really seeing them.”
Seed Media Arts is headquartered in Chicago, with an office in L.A.
