Daniel Cox–who created and directed the Sussex Safer Roads Partnership’s “Embrace Life” PSA which won a Bronze Lion at the recently concluded Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival–has joined Hungry Man for representation as a director worldwide except for Canada where he continues to be handled by Spy Films.
“Embrace Life” shows a father sitting in his living room, playing and laughing with his family as he pretends to drive a vehicle. He exchanges loving glances with his nearby wife and daughter. Suddenly his facial expression changes as he braces for an impending accident. Immediately his family comes to the rescue. The girl embraces him around the waist, serving as a seatbelt. His wife embraces him diagonally across the chest, serving as a shoulder belt harness. The impact rocks them but all are secure and safe, the human safety belt saving his life.
Cox spearheaded the PSA from start to finish. It sprang from his learning that the Sussex Safer Roads Partnership was looking to produce a positive public service message. He came up with the idea and assembled a team under the Alexander Commercials banner in the U.K. to bring the project to fruition. Cox wrote, directed and edited “Embrace Life,” with Sarah Alexander producing the job. Alexander Commercials was hybrid ad agency/production house on “Embrace Life” but his prime spotmaking and branded content roost from now on is Hungry Man.
The PSA, which debuted in the local Sussex area back in January, has since gone onto attain more than 10 million views online, the Cannes Film Lion honor in the Public Health & Safety category, as well as Gold at the New York International Advertising Awards in Shanghai.
Hungry Man got wind of Cox upon catching him being interviewed about the PSA on CNN. The production house then sought him out, ultimately resulting in his coming aboard its directorial roster.
Martin Scorsese On “The Saints,” Faith In Filmmaking and His Next Movie
When Martin Scorsese was a child growing up in New York's Little Italy, he would gaze up at the figures he saw around St. Patrick's Old Cathedral. "Who are these people? What is a saint?" Scorsese recalls. "The minute I walk out the door of the cathedral and I don't see any saints. I saw people trying to behave well within a world that was very primal and oppressed by organized crime. As a child, you wonder about the saints: Are they human?" For decades, Scorsese has pondered a project dedicated to the saints. Now, he's finally realized it in "Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints," an eight-part docudrama series debuting Sunday on Fox Nation, the streaming service from Fox News Media. The one-hour episodes, written by Kent Jones and directed by Elizabeth Chomko, each chronicle a saint: Joan of Arc, Francis of Assisi, John the Baptist, Thomas Becket, Mary Magdalene, Moses the Black, Sebastian and Maximillian Kolbe. Joan of Arc kicks off the series on Sunday, with three weekly installments to follow; the last four will stream closer to Easter next year. In naturalistic reenactments followed by brief Scorsese-led discussions with experts, "The Saints" emphasizes that, yes, the saints were very human. They were flawed, imperfect people, which, to Scorsese, only heightens their great sacrifices and gestures of compassion. The Polish priest Kolbe, for example, helped spread antisemitism before, during WWII, sheltering Jews and, ultimately, volunteering to die in the place of a man who had been condemned at Auschwitz. Scorsese, who turns 82 on Sunday, recently met for an interview not long after returning from a trip to his grandfather's hometown in Sicily. He was made an honorary citizen and the experience was still lingering in his mind. Remarks have... Read More