Director Jay Torres has signed with WildLife Management, a division of OneSuch Films, both bicoastal.
Torres, whose work often employs extensive graphics and visual effects, previously made spots through his own company, Los Angeles-based Fugitive. Formerly a conduit for Torres’ own directing and editorial projects, Fugitive is now a design and graphics company owned by Torres and his wife, senior designer Shimooi. Through Fugitive, Torres’ directorial credits include Skechers’ "Dance" and "Playground," as well as DirecTV’s "Ringside"; all of which were client-direct assignments. Through WildLife, Torres has already helmed Morningstar. com’s "Opinion" for Rubin Postaer and Associates, Santa Monica. He is currently working on Skechers’ "Skechersland" through that advertiser’s in-house agency.
Torres started as an editor, learning the ropes at a friend’s editorial and finishing company, the now defunct Key West. Torres started freelancing full time in ’90, working for such companies as Hollywood- (now Santa Monica-) based 525 Studios, and Cream Cheese Films, Hollywood. As a music video editor, he garnered two MTV nominations: one for Metallica’s "Enter Sandman" in ’91, directed by Wayne Isham via The Company (now defunct), and currently of Los Angeles-headquartered A Band Apart Commercials; and the other for Aerosmith’s "Amazing," directed by Cream Cheese’s Marty Callner in ’93. Torres began directing sporadically that same year.
Meanwhile, with Fugitive, the post house cum graphics studio Torres and Shimooi founded in ’89, Torres was experimenting with desktop graphics and editing. Torres explained, "I remember experimenting a lot with manipulation of images and type design and compositing when the first desktop revolution happened. And at the time it was slow, but it really allowed us to try things out and be pioneers in using desktop for broadcast. We started to do more and more graphic work and compositing, and more of our record company clients started to get more graphic intensive jobs, which led to doing commercials for record companies."
Torres’ exposure to music videos as an "edit doctor" encouraged him to pursue directing. Torres recalled, "A lot of young directors wouldn’t know how to put something together and tell a story. So the record companies would constantly take videos away from people and give them to me to fix. I thought to myself, ‘You know, I could go out and shoot these images-why I am fixing everybody else’s stuff?’"
Torres didn’t go behind the camera full time until ’97, when he joined Santa Monica-based Cognito Films. Unfortunately, said Torres, "They had just formed the company, and I felt they were too involved in the business to give me the kind of support that I needed. So I directed through Fugitive until I found WildLife. I wanted to find a company that could support me on bigger projects; Fugitive just doesn’t have that kind of production support staff."
He continued, "I [also] wanted to join a production company that could understand that post mentality, and WildLife seemed to be able to grasp that. They’ve brought in directors that have multi-disciplines and [not only] understand all their disciplines [but also] give them [directors] the freedom to create and the trust that’s needed to do that. And WildLife also has such a strong production background that I trust them when they say, ‘This is a better way to do this from a production end of things.’ It’s a comfortable situation for both of us."
For a professional with a visual effects background, Torres expresses a surprising attitude: "A lot of effects work is distracting to me; it doesn’t help to promote the story. It’s there because it’s an effect. I try to use it as more of a storytelling tool."
Special effects, he added, can be instrumental in creating a realistic story. Torres predicted, "You’re going to see a lot more spectacles, like Gladiator-they use 3-D in a very interesting way, more for sets than for something that says ‘Wow, that’s 3-D.’ There’ll be a lot more work with motion capture, too. The trend is to get away from effects that look like effects and more towards effects that are part of the overall story. That’s kind of the path that I’ve always wanted to head down."
WildLife Management’s other directors include Mark Celantano, Paul Freedman, Molly O’Brien and Max Da-Yung Wang. OneSuch handles such directors as Bruce Nadel, John St. Clair and Bill Scarlet.
WildLife is repped on both coasts via Necessary Evil, an independent bicoastal firm formed by Debra Roberts Sher, Jennifer Iversen and Jacquie Jones. The Los Angeles-based Sher covers the West Coast and Texas. New York’s Iversen and Jones handle the East Coast. Representing WildLife in the Midwest are Chicago-based Doug Stieber and Lynn Mutchler.
