Michael Cuesta’s body of work spans commercials, television and feature projects. The director is represented by bicoastal The Artists Company, and his reel includes fare for the Ad Council, Dove, Ford, and Smirnoff. He has directed numerous episodes of the HBO series Six Feet Under. And his feature debut, L.I.E., was released in ’01 to critical acclaim.
Today he maintains a busy commercial schedule, just wrapped a television pilot titled Dexter, starring Michael C. Hall (Six Feet Under) as a forensic specialist who moonlights as serial killer, and in features, Cuesta is getting ready for the spring release of his second motion picture, Twelve and Holding.
What is not on his resume is the heart that he brings to his work, whether it is long or short form.
“I think that one of my strengths–and drawbacks–is I always take shooting a TV commercial personally,” the director admits, acknowledging that :30s are ultimately about commerce. “I treat them as art. Sometimes that has gotten me in trouble, but it also pushed me to do great work.
“I think there are people that say ‘it’s just an ad’ — but if it is not more than that, then you just keep repeating yourself and your work becomes stagnant,” he relates.
That mindset appears to come from Cuesta’s yearning to elicit very real performances from his actors, as well as influences in the arts–photography, cinematography, and graphic design.
He recently wrapped a PSA campaign for Autismspeaks.com via BBDO New York. “Baseball” captures a poignant home video moment when a wife tapes her husband teaching their son to hit a baseball. The tag increases awareness of autism by explaining that the odds of a child reaching the Major Leagues is 1 in 22,000; the chance of a child having autism is 1 in 166. “Broadway” features a similar concept with a home video of a child singing.
At press time, Cuesta was in production on a Publix campaign via WestWayne, Tampa, Fla. The idea, the director explains, is that the filmmakers go into the stores and talk to employees about what they like about their jobs. He explains that the goal is to feel very real and impromptu.
“I like the humanistic portrait type of commercials,” Cuesta relates. “I enjoy working with actors and getting a very real, natural performance.
This is also evident in his feature choices. L.I.E. is a performance-driven story about Howie, a Long Island teen who suddenly finds himself alone after his best friend runs away and his father is arrested–all not long after his mother dies in an accident. Howie is befriended by an ex-Marine called “Big John,” and in the end, the teen ends up finding himself. In ’01, this film earned Boston Film Critics honors for Cuesta as best new director and Brian Cox (Big John) as best actor.
Cuesta’s follow up film, Twelve and Holding, debuted last year at the Toronto Film Festival and is scheduled for a May ’06 release. The film, which takes place in the suburbs of Manhattan, follows three friends and their families after a fourth friend is accidentally killed by a neighborhood bully. Cuesta explains that the film explores how they deal with grief, adjust to the loss, and how the kids are essentially left to fend for themselves.
Cuesta’s third film, The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint, will be an adaptation of the book by Brady Udall, which follows lead character Mint on a personal journey and is set in the American Southwest.
Cuesta was born, raised and continues to reside in the New York area. He was influenced by his father, Mike Cuesta Sr., who was a photographer/director, and whose career followed a path of advertising photography and television commercials. “I used to go to the set,” Cuesta recalls. “It made sense growing up to do it. [My father] never got into features, and it’s something I always wanted to try.”
When asked about additional influences, Cuesta cites photographers Irving Penn “for my love of still life and portraiture,” and W. Eugene Smith, French filmmaker François Truffaut and Italian filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni.
Through his career, Cuesta learned a lot, but says he has also enjoyed “unlearning” what he has been taught. “My background is in visual arts/graphic design, but I think I spent a lot of my career unlearning technique,” he explains. “Now I take a more low impact filmmaking approach. I started as a photographer, shooting more graphic heavy, over-designed styles. Over the past few years, I like to sit back and not over stylize it. I find that quite liberating–to let go of technique and let the ideas come through.”
Cuesta relates that his background also includes serving as a director/cinematographer on his spot work. “But when I started making films and working with HBO, I decided to bring in a director of photography. [The cinematography background] brings knowledge of what I want visually. I still learn from great DPs that I work with, but when it comes to the camera, that’s [most familiar] to me. What I find most challenging is casting and getting the right performance.”
Looking ahead at his advertising career, Cuesta says, “I’ve done the high concept stuff in features, I’d like to do higher concept campaigns–I think it is important for all filmmakers to have a career in filmmaking–commercials, television and features.”
How The Hollywood Awards Calendar Has Been Affected By The Wildfires
Hollywood's awards season has all but come to a rare halt as the wildfires continue to disrupt life and work in the Los Angeles area. There are near daily updates from the Hollywood guilds and organizations that put on awards shows as the industry navigates the ongoing crisis.
Here's an overview of the major upcoming awards shows, from the Oscars to the Grammys, including updated dates for nominations.
Producers Guild and Writers Guild award nominations
Postponed, no new dates announced
The Writers Guild of America nominations were to be announced Jan. 8, a date that was pushed to Jan. 13 and then postponed indefinitely. The Producers Guild of America nominations for feature films were to be announced on Jan. 10, which was pushed to Jan. 12 and then postponed to an unspecified date this week.
Academy Award nominations
Jan. 23
The Oscar nominations have been twice-delayed — they were initially slated for Jan. 17, then Jan. 19, before being delayed again. The delay in the announcement accommodates an extended voting deadline, as many Academy members have been affected by the wildfires.
The nominations will be announced via a "virtual presentation," eschewing press on site.
Critics Choice Awards
Jan. 26
Originally slated for Jan. 12, the awards were set to take place at the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, only miles from the Pacific Palisades neighborhood where fire was raging.
The awards will be broadcast live on E!, hosted by Chelsea Handler.
Grammy Awards
Feb. 2
By virtue of announcing their nominations back in November, the Grammys' schedule has largely been unaffected by the wildfires. Some... Read More