Director Shaun Conrad has signed with Santa Monica-based Snug Films, the year-old shop founded by director Michael Grasso and under the day-to-day aegis of executive producer Fran Wall.
Best known for his fashion/design work, Conrad had most recently been at Tate USA, Santa Monica. Prior to that, he was with Backyard, Venice, Calif.
Conrad gravitated toward Snug based on his belief that the shop was well positioned to help him garner work in two prime areas–one being fashion/design, the other narrative storytelling which is reflected in his new documentary, Purvis of Overtown. He cited the company’s sales force and the fact that the shop has a small, manageable roster, which should translate into his getting the personal attention needed to generate the proper work opportunities.
The Snug directorial lineup consists of Grasso, Conrad and the recently signed Andreas Grassl, an established European director who is making his first formal foray stateside.
Shot with friend David Raccuglia, the aforementioned Purvis of Overton chronicles the life and observations of Purvis Young, a self-taught painter and icon of African-American culture and history. “Yes, I want to do more narrative storytelling along with the fashion/design work,” related Conrad. “I’m drawn to two very different but highly focused areas of spotmaking.”
Conrad grew up in Minnesota, then moved to Chicago to attend the University of Illinois. He soon met up with Backyard co-founder Roy Skillicorn, who got him some local Chicago market spot jobs for hair salon Vidal Sassoon. With enough commercials under his belt, Conrad soon joined Backyard’s directorial roster. Conrad has only high praise for the production company, now headquartered in Venice. “I learned a lot about directing, just being at the same company as [directors] Rob Pritts and Kevin Smith was a positive experience for me” related Conrad.
Three years later, in 2002, Conrad left Backyard and headed for the West Coast, where he linked up with Tate USA. He worked consistently in the fashion/design arena but then made a conscious decision–and adopted a strategy–to diversify.
“I intentionally took myself out of the loop with Purvis Of Overton,” he explained. What Conrad found during the documentary was a love of narrative storytelling. “It was a once-in-a-lifetime project, so I disappeared from the commercial scene for awhile.”
He returned to commercials last year. Conrad’s spot credits over the years include work for such clients as Kraft, Burger King, Fruit Gushers, Pillsbury, Mervyn’s, Earthlink, K-Swiss and Reebok.
Snug Films is represented on the East Coast by Arthur Portnoy, in the Midwest by Maureen Butler, and on the West Coast by Rachel Finn and Mary Saxon of Finn/Saxon Represents. Snug is repped in Canada by Maxx Film and in Germany by Wunderfilm.
“Atropia” and “Twinless” Win Marquee Prizes At Sundance Film Festival
The war satire “Atropia,” about actors in a military role-playing facility, won the grand jury prize in the Sundance Film Festival’s U.S. dramatic competition, while the Dylan O’Brien movie “Twinless” got the coveted audience award.
Juries and programmers for the 41st edition of the independent film festival announced the major prizewinners Friday in Park City, Utah.
Other grand jury winners included the documentaries “Seeds,” about farmers in rural Georgia and “Cutting Through the Rocks,” about the first elected councilwoman in an Iranian village. The Indian drama “Sabar Bonda (Cactus Pears),” about a city dweller mourning his father in the western Indian countryside, won the top prize in the world cinema competition.
“It’s for my dad,” said writer and director Rohan Parashuram Kanawade. His late father, he said, was the one who encouraged him to pursue filmmaking.
Audiences also get to vote on their own awards, where James Sweeney’s “Twinless,” about the bromance between two men who meet in a twin bereavement support group, triumphed in the U.S. dramatic category. O’Brien also won a special jury award for his acting.
The U.S. documentary audience award went to “André is an Idiot,” a life-affirming film about dying of colon cancer. Other audience picks were “Prime Minister,” about former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, and “DJ Ahmet,” a coming-of-age film about a 15-year-old boy in North Macedonia.
Mstyslav Chernov, the Oscar-winning Associated Press journalist, won the world cinema documentary directing award for his latest dispatch from Ukraine, “2000 Meters to Andriivka,” a joint production between the AP and PBS Frontline.
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