Director Marcos Siega has signed with bicoastal/international hungry man for spot representation. For music videos he continues to be repped by Los Angeles-based Bonfire Films of America.
Until signing with hungry man, Siega was with New York-based Notorious Pictures for commercials, though he helmed no spots through the company.
While he is a newcomer to the ad arena, Siega is a music video veteran: His clip for Blink 182’s "All the Small Things" just took home the Best Group Video award at the recent MTV Video Music Awards. The video, a deadpan spoof of boy bands and teenage fan culture, followed the group’s "What’s My Age Again?" clip, which Siega also helmed.
Siega has also directed the short films Stung and Is This Clone Revolt, both of which were screened at the MVPA (Music Videos Producers Association) Director’s Cuts Film Festival in 1999 and 2000, respectively.
A former professional musician, Siega has been directing videos since ’95, when he was an assistant producer at the now defunct Ketchum Advertising. Siega decided to make a music video with a friend, who was in the then-unsigned band C.I.V. As it happened, said Siega, "The band got signed to Atlantic; the video for ‘Can’t Wait One Minute More’ went to MTV, and it was a hit!" So in ’95, "I quit my job and started directing."
His success came as a surprise: "When you do a spec commercial or a video or something, you don’t really ever expect it to get out to the masses," Siega related. "But everything went my way. … So I did a lot of videos for New York City rock bands." Siega signed with Woo Art International, New York, in ’95, where he made "Fueled" for Anthrax, and later joined Notorious Pictures.
However, three years after his surprise success, Siega was dissatisfied and still struggling: "The music video industry in New York is sort of slow, and I just felt like I needed to be in an environment where there was a lot of work," he explained. He relocated to Los Angeles in the summer of ’98, where "I met with a lot of companies and a lot of people turned me away," Siega recalled. But, "at Bonfire, my rep, John McGinnis, and executive producers, AJ Schnack and Shirley Moyers, really believed in me. They basically made me a priority." McGinnis helped Siega get the high profile (and high budget) Blink 182 jobs. Siega’s success with Blink 182 has made it easier to potentially branch out into commercials. But Siega has also remained loyal to Bonfire, which made his recent search for new spot representation tricky: "The large production companies really wanted me for music videos and said they would build me into commercials. But I didn’t want to leave Bonfire; that was important to me."
Siega made a list of companies he wanted to join, and hungry man was on it. Siega’s managers (Matt Weaver and Emily Greines at Immortal Entertainment, Santa Monica) contacted hungry man partner/director Bryan Buckley, who agreed to meet with him. "When I went in and met with them," related Siega, "they said, ‘OK, we’ll sign you,’ right at the meeting!—which shocked me."
Hungry man partner/executive producer Stephen Orent commented, "We met Marcos when we first started the company a few years ago. He had some spec spots on his reel and some videos that he had shot. And they were excellent, but at the time we just weren’t really equipped to bring him on."
However, "he basically resurfaced a couple of weeks ago. He came into the office, and his reel is just fantastic. Bryan and I were literally rolling on the ground during the Blink 182 video! It was hilarious." Orent continued, "although there’s no dialogue, the comedy, the nuances, the performances he got from all the actors—it totally translates into what we do."
Siega looks forward to directing spots, in part because he relishes dialogue: "I’m a comedy guy; I think it’s where my strengths are. I definitely want to do comedy dialogue-driven pieces, but coming from the music video world, I also think I have the image thing in my favor." Siega has not abandoned his clip career, however: "Tomorrow I’m shooting Collective Soul’s ‘Why Part 2,’ " he told SHOOT. "And then next week I’m shooting the new Blink 182 video, for a song called ‘Man Overboard.’ "
Siega also plans to direct a Blink 182 feature, which is currently in development at Universal, and he’s working on a screenplay for a romantic comedy tentatively titled Again. But for now, he states, "I really want to make a move into commercials." And as for his other goals, Siega promised, "I’m going to take everything one step at a time."
Hungry man’s partners/directors are Buckley and Hank Perlman; directors are John O’Hagan, David Shane, Mark Foster, Paul Norling, Bennett Miller, Young Kim, Marc Klasfeld and Martin Canellakis.
Hungry man is repped by New York-based Chris Messiter, Ann McKallagat and Barrie Isaacson on the East Coast; Kitty Monaghan and Kelly Halpine of monaghan+halpine, Chicago, in the Midwest; and Raquel Muñoz-Flores of Resource, Los Angeles, on the West Coast.
