Director Greg Brunkalla has joined Artists and Derelicts (AND)–the recently launched shop headed by executive producer Missy Galanida and producer Heather Heller–for exclusive U.S. representation in commercials, branded content and music videos. AND is a satellite of mainstay spot/music video house DNA. (Galanida continues in her capacity as DNA exec producer and Heller still serves as DNA producer for director Francis Lawrence.)
Brunkalla comes over to AND from Legs Media, a company he co-founded in New York. There he was often part of a Legs directing collective, occasionally branching out to direct individually. The most notable recent example of his solo helming prowess is T-Mobile’s “Angry Birds” for Saatchi & Saatchi London, which captured the popular video game in a life-size version via an installation in Barcelona that invited passersby to use a mobile phone to activate a cannon that launches big birds toward a teetering structure and some pigs which have explosive potential. The Brunkalla-directed “Angry Birds” spot–produced by Rokkit, London–debuted on YouTube and has generated some 5 million hits and counting.
Other individual credits for Brunkalla include Screen Tests, a series of intimate celebrity interviews for The New York Times and later W Magazine, which went on to earn two national Daytime Emmy nominations as well as a regional Emmy nom. Brunkalla additionally directed on his own The Suitcase, an interactive short fashion film produced by Legs Media for Marie Claire Magazine, as well as The Remaking of W, a documentary on the evolution of W Magazine.
Brunkalla said he came aboard AND in order to further his career as a solo director and to help diversify the nature of his work beyond real people and documentary fare to include more creative narrative endeavors. He added that he was drawn to the open-mindedness and creative sensibilities of Galanida and Heller.
Brunkalla first established himself as an individual director at @radical.media, having come up through the ranks there, initially at its Outpost Digital operation as an assistant editor and then an editor. After some four years repped as a director via @radical, Brunkalla went entrepreneurial, teaming with Georgie Greville, Geremy Jasper and Adam Joseph to form Legs Media in concert with Milk Studios. Greville, Jasper, Joseph and Brunkalla gained a reputation as a directing/producing collective, with perhaps their highest profile credit being the Target Kaleidoscopic Fashion Spectacular for Mother, New York. The multimedia show entailed hundreds of dancers, one in every room of the south facade of the Standard Hotel in Manhattan–with stories unfolding in the windows for thousands of street-level onlookers. This live audience could also access nearby street level models and fashion pods to get a closer look at Target fashions. The Legs collective teamed with choreographer Sir Ryan Heffington, lighting designers from Bionic League, the Mother creative ensemble and music/sound house Squeak E. Clean, among others, to create a spectacle which took on an online viral life of its own.
Earlier this year, Target’s Kaleidoscopic Fashion Spectacular earned honors in the AICP Show’s NEXT Awards Integrated Campaign and Experiential categories, as well as inclusion in the top 10 of the inaugural Ads Worth Spreading competition. The latter was created by TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design,) the noted nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading.
Brunkalla joins an AND directorial roster that also includes Bec Stupak, Evan Dennis, Matt Stawski, Crooker Jackson, and Eclectic Method. AND’s plans are for its talent to be active in spots, videos, branded content, web films, live experiential advertising and other evolving content forms.
“AND is the next logical step for DNA. Our solid brand of talented directors and creative work will be a launching point for starting this new venture. I am very excited about pushing the company forward,” said Galanida.
The DNA talent roster includes such directors as Francis Lawrence, Marc Webb, Rich Lee and Jean Baptiste Mondino. Launched by exec David Naylor, DNA has long been known as a shop stewarding its directors from the early stages of music videos to high-level commercials. Several DNA directors have leveraged their high concept music videos into feature films including Lawrence whose credits include I Am Legend, and Webb who directed (500) Days of Summer and is currently in the midst of The Amazing Spiderman. Longtime DNA exec producer Patricia Judice continues to handle that company’s lineup of directors for commercials.
Netflix Series “The Leopard” Spots Classic Italian Novel, Remakes It As A Sumptuous Period Drama
"The Leopard," a new Netflix series, takes the classic Italian novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa and transforms it into a sumptuous period piece showing the struggles of the aristocracy in 19th-century Sicily, during tumultuous social upheavals as their way of life is crumbling around them.
Tom Shankland, who directs four of the eight episodes, had the courage to attempt his own version of what is one of the most popular films in Italian history. The 1963 movie "The Leopard," directed by Luchino Visconti, starring Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon and Claudia Cardinale, won the Palme d'Or in Cannes.
One Italian critic said that it would be the equivalent of a director in the United States taking "Gone with the Wind" and turning it into a series, but Shankland wasn't the least bit intimidated.
He said that he didn't think of anything other than his own passion for the project, which grew out of his love of the book. His father was a university professor of Italian literature in England, and as a child, he loved the book and traveling to Sicily with his family.
The book tells the story of Don Fabrizio Corbera, the Prince of Salina, a tall, handsome, wealthy aristocrat who owns palaces and land across Sicily.
His comfortable world is shaken with the invasion of Sicily in 1860 by Giuseppe Garibaldi, who was to overthrow the Bourbon king in Naples and bring about the Unification of Italy.
The prince's family leads an opulent life in their magnificent palaces with servants and peasants kowtowing to their every need. They spend their time at opulent banquets and lavish balls with their fellow aristocrats.
Shankland has made the series into a visual feast with tables heaped with food, elaborate gardens and sensuous costumes.... Read More