Paris Barclay–a 10-time Directors Guild of America (DGA) Award nominee, who won the honor for Best Director of A Dramatic Series on the strength of a 1998 NYPD Blue episode–has joined the roster of production house greatguns for worldwide representation in spots and new media. Greatguns, headed by founder/chairperson Laura Gregory, has shops in the U.S., U.K. and Asia, with greatguns: usa headquartered in Venice and under the aegis of managing partner Tom Korsan.
Barclay is the first director in the history of the DGA Awards to earn a comedy and a drama nomination in the same year–in ’09 for episodes of Weeds and In Treatment, and again this year for Glee and In Treatment.
His directorial work has also earned a pair of Emmys, both for NYPD Blue. Barclay has four other Emmy nominations for producing or directing, the most recent coming this year for his directing of a Glee episode.
Over his career, Barclay has directed 115 TV episodes to date, including such shows as ER, The West Wing, CSI, Lost, The Shield, House, Law & Order, Monk Numb3rs, City of Angels, The Mentalist, Sons of Anarchy, NCIS: Los Angeles and The Good Wife.
Barclay won an NAACP Image Award for Best Drama Series as co-creator, writer and director of the medical drama City of Angels, and another Image Award for directing Cold Case. He has received five other NAACP nominations, including one last season for an episode of CSI. His work has also been acknowledged with three Peabody Awards (for NYPD Blue, Glee and In Treatment), and three Humanitas Prizes (for NYPD Blue, House and Glee) among other awards. Most recently, the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences has recognized two Barclay-directed episodes, Glee‘s “Wheels” and CSI‘s “Coup de Grace,” with the Television Academy Honors for “Television With a Conscience,” which is for “achievements in programming that present issues of concern to our society in a compelling, emotional and insightful way.”
Currently, Barclay is executive producer and the principal director of HBO’s In Treatment, starring Gabriel Byrne, Debra Winger and Amy Ryan. Now in its third season, besides the two DGA nominations, In Treatment has garnered two Emmys (out of seven nominations), a Golden Globe (four nominations, including Outstanding Drama Series), two DGA nominations, a Writers Guild of America (WGA) Award (for Best New Drama Series), the Peabody Award, two NAACP Image Award nominations, and the show was chosen by AFI as one of the 2008 Television Programs of the Year.
Pedro, the biopic Barclay co-wrote and executive produced with Oscar winner Dustin Lance Black (Milk), premiered in 2009 at the Toronto, Berlin and Palm Springs Film Festivals before airing on MTV. Pedro is the emotional story of The Real World‘s Pedro Zamora, an openly gay Cuban-American, who, at 17, discovered he was HIV-positive and dedicated the rest of his life to educating and bringing awareness about the disease to the world. Barclay and Black were nominated for the WGA Award, the Humanitas Prize, and a GLAAD Media Award for their work on the film.
Barclay also directed the HBO film The Cherokee Kid, and the Miramax feature Don’t Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood, starring Shawn and Marlon Wayans. Paris has also directed commercials and music videos, the latter for the likes of Janet Jackson, Bob Dylan, the New Kids On the Block, and eight clips for LL Cool J, including the MTV and Billboard award winner “Mama Said Knock You Out.”
Ad roots
Barclay is no stranger to commercialmaking. Before directing, he began in advertising as a copywriter and eventually creative supervisor at agencies such as Grey, BBDO, and Mingo-Jones. Among the clients he has created ads for are Folgers, MTV, Pillsbury, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Pepsi, and IBM. In 1986, he wrote and then directed the inaugural public service ad for the American Foundation for AIDS Research (AmFAR), starring Elizabeth Taylor in her first television commercial.
As a playwright and composer, Barclay has written 16 musicals, including One Red Flower, based on the soldiers’ letters from the collection “Dear America: Letters Home From Vietnam.” It has been produced in Boston, Seattle, Pittsburgh, Washington DC–and in a benefit performance in Los Angeles starring Hunter Parrish, Maureen McGovern, and Josh Henderson.
In July 2009, Barclay was re-elected for the third time as the first VP of the DGA, breaking barriers by serving as the first African-American officer in the history of the Guild. In 2007 he was awarded the Robert B. Aldrich Service Award for distinguished service to the DGA, joining such past recipients as luminaries Arthur Hiller, Gil Cates, and Robert Wise.
Matthew Forrest Launches Commercial/Branded Content Production Company Cloud Forest
Producer Matthew Forrest has officially launched Cloud Forest, a Los Angeles-based video production company specializing in commercials and branded content, with additional capabilities in emerging formats like AI and VR.
With the mantra “Where your vision meets our production precision,” Cloud Forest aims to serve brands, agencies and networks with a blend of creativity and operational efficiency.
Forrest brings over 20 years of experience to Cloud Forest. His portfolio includes producing commercial content for Square, Aveeno, and Lyft, branded content series for KitchenAid, Pizza Hut, and Verizon, and projects like Mariah Carey’s “Keys of Christmas.” Forrest’s career highlight came at Endemol Shine, where he earned a Sports Emmy in 2018 for producing Life VR’s “Capturing Everest.”
“Leveraging my varied experiences in both traditional and digital formats, I’m excited to create content across a wide array of platforms with the partners I admire,” said Forrest. “Our focus is on delivering excellence in commercials and branded content, while also offering cutting-edge solutions in AI and VR when appropriate for our clients’ needs.”
Cloud Forest’s talent roster currently features long-time Forrest collaborators such as commercial directors Ben Pluimer, Michael Belcher, Clyde Bessey, Christopher Louie and Kevin K. Shah; director/photographer Shawn Corrigan; photographers Gabriela Oltean and Will Deleon; and creative directors Natalie Perry and Drew Grossman. The studio’s strength lies in curating the right team and accurately defining the necessary resources--budget, roles, and technology--allowing every project to meet its creative and business goals.
This approach has earned praise from industry... Read More