Director Dave Laden, whose PETA PSA “Grace” earlier this month was honored in the Public Service category of the AICP Show, has joined Hungry Man for worldwide representation. Laden helmed “Grace” via Hollywood-based Über Content, his previous production house roost.
Conceived by L.A. agency Matter, the PSA–which made SHOOT‘s “The Best Work You May Never See” gallery in Nov. 2009–opens at the Thanksgiving dinner table where a family is gathered before a sumptuous feast, which includes a big turkey. A young girl then says grace, expressing “thanks” for the turkey, the turkey farms where they put turkeys in dark little sheds for their entire lives and where the birds’ feathers are burned while they’re still alive. She then gives thanks for the people who think it’s fun to kill turkey’s by stomping on their heads, and for “the chemicals, dirt and poop inside the turkey we’re about to eat.”
At the very end of grace, she adds, “And thank you for rainbows.” A supered message concluding the spot reads, “Go Veg–PETA.”
Laden’s industry roots are in ad agency soil. He began his career as an art director at Ogilvy & Mather, New York, working on such accounts as American Express, IBM and Hershey’s. He went on to become an associate creative director at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco, creating for Comcast, the California Milk Processor Board and Saturn, among other clients. During his Goodby tenure, he also got the opportunity to direct commercials for Saturn, the X-Games and nonprofit organization called Youth Speaks.
Laden directed projects via Teak Motion Visuals, a San Francisco-based hybrid editorial/production shop, before joining Über Content in late ’07.
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