GO has added award-winning director Jeff Chan to its roster for his first U.S. commercial representation. Chan first earned widespread attention for his work through spec commercials for Call Of Duty, which drew viral buzz. Activision then hired Chan to helm their first live action Call Of Duty short film that debuted at the Call Of Duty XP Conference, for which he wrote, directed, and crafted the VFX. He has also directed a number of commercials for such brands as Doritos, KPMC and the Canadian Film Center. In addition to directing the shorts “Dandy Lions” and “The Apostles,” he made his feature directorial debut with the horror thriller Grace: The Possession, which premiered at Sundance and was picked up for distribution by Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions. He is currently in production on 19, a feature film with QED International and an untitled firefighter-themed feature project with Lionsgate.
Chan began honing his craft in high school in Vancouver, writing, shooting and producing shorts with an enthusiastic group of friends. He further finessed his skills while studying film at Ryerson University in Toronto before securing a grant for his humorous short, “The Apostles,” which won various accolades at film festivals throughout Canada. As a gamer himself and a fan of the Call of Duty franchise, he crafted the high octane live action spec “Find Makarov,” which garnered over 8 million views on YouTube as well as the attention of Activision. In addition to helming the live action “Call of Duty: Operation Kingfish” short, he has also worked on a number of spots including a zombie horror re-imagining of the viral “Charlie Bit My Finger” video for the Canadian Film Centre, which won Gold honors at the Atomic Awards and Digital Marketing Awards.
Gary Rose, GO managing director, said, “Jeff has a very unique first person sensibility that touches all his work. He brings the viewer along for the ride, immersing us in his dramatic style of storytelling. I love his ability to communicate why he makes the decisions and choices that he does in his films and commercials. I believe he will be very successful in any medium he chooses to attack.”
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