Director/writer Richard Yelland is joining Happy Ending, the production company founded earlier this year by executive producer Steven Shore and director Jonathan David. Yelland comes over from Dictionary Films.
Yelland’s critically acclaimed film Floating: the Nathan Gocke Story, produced by Oscar-nominee, Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me), won “Best Documentary” at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival’s American Pavilion Emerging Filmmaker Showcase. Floating was also a “Best Documentary” winner at the 2010 New York City Short Film Festival and is currently airing nationally on FUEL TV. The film chronicles the story of a man who becomes a paraplegic after a surfing accident and then perseveres through rehab to again surf.
Yelland has become known as a filmmaker who explores the extremes of action sports and human storytelling with a smart hint of comedy. Real people, powerful visuals and great performances are a trademark of his directorial work on projects for Fox Sports, Fuel TV and the Ford Motor Company, among others. Yelland received an Emmy nomination in the national public service category for “Pool,” a PSA he wrote and directed for the Life Rolls On Foundation, a nonprofit organization that serves as a grass-roots resource and advocate for young people who have sustained spinal cord injuries. “Pool” centers on Darwin Holmes, a wheelchair-bound athlete who finds himself poolside, staring–one imagines, into the water below–and contemplating his physical limitations. Shockingly, Holmes rolls his chair over the edge and into the swimming pool, which turns out to be empty. Holmes then “skates” all over the pool in his wheelchair, offering an extreme sports-like exhibition. A supered word “disabled” turns to “able” as he passes by. Yelland directed “Pool” when he was at Right Brain Media.
Yelland started his career as an agency creative in New York. His agency pedigree includes his serving as a copywriter at J. Walter Thompson and Kirshenbaum Bond + Partners (now Kirsehenbaum Bond Senecal + Partners), both in New York. His writing spanned such brands as Eastman Kodak, Coca-Cola, and Procter & Gamble.
As a spot director, he gained initial recognition in SHOOT‘s “The Best Work You May Never See” gallery for Gold Gym’s “Serious Fitness,” a comedy commercial that opens on a man who wakes up and drowsily walks from his bedroom to the hallway. Strangely the bedroom door is unhinged. He then takes a shower–but the shower stall door is missing. Next he heats up a cup of coffee in the kitchen microwave. The microwave door is gone. He’s then seated at the kitchen table eating breakfast when a newspaper flies into the picture and hits him in the head. A missing kitchen door cleared the path for the delivery boy to airmail the paper directly at the man. Finally we see the guy running a quick errand. He reaches to open the swinging door of a sidewalk mailbox–and effortlessly pulls the little door straight off its hinges. A closing super of the Gold Gym’s logo appears on screen, accompanied by the slogan, “Serious Fitness.”
Utah Leaders and Locals Rally To Keep Sundance Film Festival In The State
With the 2025 Sundance Film Festival underway, Utah leaders, locals and longtime attendees are making a final push — one that could include paying millions of dollars — to keep the world-renowned film festival as its directors consider uprooting.
Thousands of festivalgoers affixed bright yellow stickers to their winter coats that read "Keep Sundance in Utah" in a last-ditch effort to convince festival leadership and state officials to keep it in Park City, its home of 41 years.
Gov. Spencer Cox said previously that Utah would not throw as much money at the festival as other states hoping to lure it away. Now his office is urging the Legislature to carve out $3 million for Sundance in the state budget, weeks before the independent film festival is expected to pick a home for the next decade.
It could retain a small presence in picturesque Park City and center itself in nearby Salt Lake City, or move to another finalist — Cincinnati, Ohio, or Boulder, Colorado — beginning in 2027.
"Sundance is Utah, and Utah is Sundance. You can't really separate those two," Cox said. "This is your home, and we desperately hope it will be your home forever."
Last year's festival generated about $132 million for the state of Utah, according to Sundance's 2024 economic impact report.
Festival Director Eugene Hernandez told reporters last week that they had not made a final decision. An announcement is expected this year by early spring.
Colorado is trying to further sweeten its offer. The state is considering legislation giving up to $34 million in tax incentives to film festivals like Sundance through 2036 — on top of the $1.5 million in funds already approved to lure the Utah festival to its neighboring... Read More