Director Lara Shapiro has signed for exclusive commercial representation in the U.S. with Fuel, the Santa Monica production house headed by executive producer Matthew Marquis. Shapiro, who is based in New York, joins the company after two and a half years at bicoastal/ international hungry man, which was her first spot roost.
Shapiro’s final assignment via hungry man was a campaign for PeoplePC, through Ogilvy &Mather, New York, which featured child spokesperson Mark John Jeffries. Specializing in performance-driven work, Shapiro has also helmed spots for such clients as Dutch water firm Nuon via Result DDB, Amsterdam, and Toytime.com via New York agency Gee Wiz. The Nuon ad, "Toilet," features a spokesperson who approaches strangers near public restrooms and asks them whether they drank the toilet water. Naturally, the people are at once aghast and confused by the query, and react accordingly. A voiceover later explains that Nuon is exploring alternatives to the wasteful practice of using viable drinking water for plumbing and sanitation.
Shapiro was drawn to Fuel because of the rapport she developed with Marquis. The director also cited the company’s overall "vibe," observing that the Fuel team has "a very smart, analytical approach to production."
The director is perhaps best known for a series of client-direct promos for the Independent Film Channel (IFC). The tongue-in-cheek promos feature such notables as Matt Damon, Lily Taylor, Edward Norton and William H. Macy singing the praises of a prepubescent feature director named "Christie," played by Hallie Eisenberg, star of the current Pepsi campaign. The ads were co-written and co-produced by hungry man partner/ director Hank Perlman. Shapiro’s additional spot credits include promos for New York’s Gen Art Film Festival.
Last spring, Shapiro shot and directed Dispatches, a documentary about American journalists in Nairobi, Africa. Shot on digital video, the film explores the lives of a dozen reporters, but focuses primarily on Lara Santoro, a journalist for Newsweek and the Boston Globe. Describing the film as "a behind-the-scenes portrait," Shapiro added that she grew a lot as a director through the experience. "There’s a tendency to think that documentaries are just about setting up the camera," she explained, "but you still have to shape people’s performances in subtle ways so that the material follows a storyline." The film is currently being edited, and Shapiro plans to both submit it to film festivals and shop it to television networks.
Shapiro is also writing a feature script which she describes as an adventurous love story, and which she plans to direct. She previously wrote Second Skin, a romantic short set in a pet store and directed by Amy Talkington. Shapiro directed Tipped and Crawl, two short films that screened at the Sundance Film Festival in ’95. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Cornell University and her M.F.A. in film from Columbia University, New York.
Shapiro rounds out a Fuel directorial roster that also includes Seth Epstein, Neil Tardio, Jr., and Jarl Olsen. The company is represented by New York-based Chris Zander on the East Coast, Chicago-based Tracy Bernard in the Midwest, and Los Angeles-based Mark Andrews on the West Coast.
