SHOOTonline will publish a Special Directors >e.dition on Monday, October 20, that will contain the entire Directors Series section from SHOOT’s October 17 print issue (including extended versions of some stories).
The lineup of Directors Profiles includes: Bennett Miller, this year’s Best Director winner at the Cannes Film Festival for Foxcatcher, a feature generating Oscar buzz; Theodore Melfi, whose theatrical motion picture directing debut, St. Vincent, premiered to rave reviews and a measure of Oscar-related speculation at last month’s Toronto International Film Festival; Debra Granik, who’s diversified into the documentary discipline after seeing her Winter’s Bone garner four Oscar nominations, including for Best Picture, in 2011; and Rory Kennedy, an accomplished documentarian whose Last Days in Vietnam recently went into wide theatrical release and is slated to run on PBS as part of the American Experience series.
Interestingly all these directors have a spotmaking connection. Miller made his first mark in commercials and continues to be repped for spots and branded content by production house Smuggler. Melfi recently teamed with long-time colleague, exec producer Rich Carter, to launch commercial/branded entertainment production company brother. Granik is represented for ad assignments via SPLENDID & Co. And Kennedy recently secured her first spot representation via Nonfiction Limited.
Rounding out our lineup of profiles is director Lance Acord of Park Pictures. Acord directed Apple’s “Misunderstood” which back in August won the primetime commercial Emmy Award. Acord has a feature film in development at Disney based on a Jack London novel; he also is partnered in Park Pictures’ feature film division which has in recent years turned out three movies, all of which have debuted at the Sundance Film Festival.
Meanwhile our lineup of promising, up-and-coming directorial talent includes: a helming duo whose pedigree includes five Emmy Awards between them; a copywriter who has settled successfully into the director’s chair; a music video director who’s made a major ad splash with a tug-at-the-heartstrings spot that has scored online and on air; a director who put his creative touch on an agency’s over-the-top self-promotional short which went on to score a Cannes Bronze Lion; and a still photographer who has extended his creative filmmaking reach to food/tabletop videos and spots.
And then in our Cinematographers & Cameras Series, we meet three DPs who all scored impressively at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival: Bobby Bukowski who had four features–99 Homes, Infinitely Polar Bear, Rosewater and Time Out of Mind–at this year’s fest; Tami Reiker, ASC, who shot festival Special Presentations selection Beyond The Lights; and Martin Ruhe who lensed The Keeping Room, which was also chosen as an entry in Toronto’s Special Presentations program.
