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.
SUPERLATIVE Signs Director Claudia Abend For Spots and Branded Content
Latin American director/editor and documentary filmmaker Claudia Abend has joined SUPERLATIVE for her first U.S. representation spanning commercials and branded content.
Abend's empathetic docu-style POV has garnered several international awards for the documentary films Hit (2008) and The Flower of Life (2018). Her spotmaking credits include such brands as Procter & Gamble, Nestle and Blue Cross/Blue Shield. SUPERLATIVE has already worked with Abend, together producing a new ad campaign for digital agency Tinuiti and The Honest Company, a consumer goods corporation featuring eco-minded products.
“We found Claudia through her poignant documentaries on the festival circuit,” said SUPERLATIVE creative manager Stefan Dezil. “We are excited about her textured narratives, emotional storytelling, and her powerhouse long-form storytelling abilities, currently on her third feature film. As SUPERLATIVE continues to build our brand after premiering our latest films at Sundance and SXSW, Claudia is the kind of multidimensional artist we are excited to partner with on branded content and beyond. Fluent in English and Spanish, her reel shows real prowess with infants, food and skin products, families both young and old. Great visual storytelling and inspirational doc work.”
Abend began her career in her native Uruguay, studying film and editing in college. “My dad would show me films like Citizen Kane,” she said. “I love cinema and became an editor. It was here that I learned all about communicating human emotion.”
From the get-go, Abend hit it big as a documentary director, teaming with Adrianna Loeff on Hit, a movie chronicling pop artists of Uruguayan music. Abend took home a Best Editing... Read More