Director Mat Humphrey doesn’t want to be known as "the PSA guy." Yet it’s a title that fits snugly because he’s made the public service announcement into an art form. Take "Consequences," for the Land Traffic Safety Association, which Humphrey directed for Clemenger BBDO, Wellington, New Zealand, via his Australian roost, Filmgraphics, Sydney.
In the spot, which garnered a Bronze Lion at last year’s Cannes International Advertising Festival, a man is seen riding on a bus. The picture is tinted an eerie green. We see him thinking about an earlier event—him walking out of an office carrying a cardboard box full of papers as another man tells him that something is not his fault. Back on the bus, a little boy peers at the man, who turns away. Next, we see a flashback of him driving his sports car at top speed on an open road. A pretty woman sitting next to him asks, "Do you always drive this fast?" Suddenly, his vehicle rear-ends an SUV stopped at a crosswalk. The man examines the damage to his front fender and approaches the driver of the SUV. She is sobbing and looking horrified, staring straight ahead. He looks at the crosswalk in front of her car, which was hit so hard from behind that it ran over a young woman. A small boy standing next to the dead body calls out, "Mommy!" A graphic reads, "The faster you go, the bigger the mess."
The spot is typical of Humphrey’s no-holds-barred style, which plays with time and expectations to grab viewers’ attention and surprise them with the denouement. "You have to find different ways to do it," says the director, who recently signed with bicoastal Reactor Films for U.S. representation. "If you put it down into basics, it’s about taking the viewer on a journey one way and then spinning them around when they least expect it. If you challenge the audience and draw them in, you’ll really take them on board."
Humphrey uses unusual techniques to get moving performances out of his actors. "What Hurts Most," for the Transport Accident Commission out of Grey Advertising, Melbourne, Australia, involves a blind character, and Humphrey told the cast and crew that the actor playing the part was actually blind. "In between shooting, people would help him, they would whisper around him, and they would treat him like a child," he recalls, noting that the actor wasn’t really blind. "That helped him become the character. He felt what it was like to be blind."
An Australia native, Humphrey has been honing such techniques for almost two decades now, and in the process has won three Bronze Lions at Cannes, a Gold Pencil at the One Show, a Gold Award at the London International Advertising Awards for direction and a Silver Clio. Born and raised in Melbourne, the director studied graphic design at Swinburne College, Victoria, Australia—he couldn’t get into the university’s filmmaking program because "I couldn’t write; I was terrible in English." He left the school at 19 to pursue full-time work in industrial film and video production.
His first job was at Vitascope Productions, Melbourne, where he soaked up a range of eclectic experiences, including some directing. After about three years, he moved to Energy Source Television, Melbourne, where he directed, shot, edited and dubbed low-end commercials and corporate videos. "I even painted the sets," he says. "I did the whole chain of command. I learned about everything."
After a few years, he moved to the higher-end corporate industrial house, Enreg, where he shot "drama-based industrials. It was fabulous," he says. Following that, he went to Great Southern Films, which Humphrey calls "the best commercial production house in Melbourne." Finally, in search of more upscale and international work, he moved to Sydney and Filmgraphics. That was 10 years ago, and he has never regretted the move. "Sydney feels much closer to the world," he says.
In recent years, he has consciously avoided doing many PSAs, for which he was becoming well known, focusing instead on whimsical and absurdist comedy. For instance, "Hold Up," for Razzamatazz hosiery out of Grey, parodies a bank robbery caper film, with quick cuts and hand-held cameras. In the ad, a team of female bank robbers wearing Razzamatazz pantyhose successfully avoid being caught—despite the fact that their faces were unmasked—because all the bank’s customers can remember are the robbers’ legs.
Humphrey hasn’t entirely given up PSAs—his first American spot, "Motherless Child," was about the hazards of smoking. Shot last year for the Minnesota Partnership for Action Against Tobacco, out of Clarity Coverdale Fury, Minneapolis, the ad shows a woman holding a baby while speaking to a video camera. "Hi, Emma," she says. "It’s Mommy, and this is you. Mommy is really sick, so I wanted to do this so you’ll always know how much I love you." Then the mother sings "You Are My Sunshine" to her daughter. A graphic reads, "Be there tomorrow. Stop smoking today."
Humphrey’s experience with "Motherless Child" whetted his appetite to do more work stateside, and led him to sign with Reactor. "We have a lot less money [for spots] in Australia," he explains. "In our market, you can’t afford to be pigeonholed. The best directors have to be able to handle everything. You have to have an understanding of everything. In the States, it’s a lot more competitive, so they like to pigeonhole you."
Humphrey currently has no plans to make a feature. He admits that his first love is spotwork, and says he finds new media intriguing. "I really enjoy making TV commercials," he states. "I love good ideas. I like the process of dealing with creatives every day as you try to understand the client’s concerns. The whole thing is that you’re selling ideas. I really get a buzz out of making good ads."
Whether he is directing comedy or drama, his philosophy is simple: Do it differently each time, surprise yourself and others and, above all, don’t get typecast. "I’m not the PSA guy. I’m not an actor’s director," he says. "I’m a performance storyteller. I like observing people, using people’s natural human behavior to help them make a point. Whether it’s humor or tragedy, it all has to do with human behavior."
