Director John Adams, best known for his work in comedy, has joined bicoastal Original for exclusive representation. Adams comes aboard Original after a nearly nine-year run at the now shuttered Form where he directed campaigns for Bud Light, AT&T, Home Depot, and Snickers, among other national brands.
Adams began his career on the agency side as a copywriter and producer, including tenures at FCB San Francisco, Hal Riney & Partners (now Publicis & Hal Riney), San Francisco, and Wieden+Kennedy, Portland, Ore. He broke into directing while serving as head of production at DDB Needham, Dallas.
Adams estimates that he has directed more than 400 spots, most of which leverage his understated approach toward dialogue-driven comedy. His most recent work includes a spot for Cellular One in which a teen reacts in incomprehension when her parents present her with an old fashioned device called a “camera.” (“Who would invent a camera-phone that doesn’t call anyone?” she whines.) He also directed a spot for Home Depot promoting a national “Tool Trade-In” event. In it, a man consoles a buddy who is about to part ways with a treasured, but aging drill.
“I was lucky that, from the start, I got to do things that involved comedy and storytelling,” Adams related. “Styles and fashions change quickly in advertising, but people will always enjoy spots that involve human storytelling.”
Original is led by executive producers Bruce Mellon, Joe Piccirillo, Marc Lasko and Jeff Devlin, and maintains production offices in Los Angeles and New York City. The company’s recently formed postproduction division, headed by Jonathan Del Gatto, provides editorial, design, graphics and visual effects services.
SUPERLATIVE Signs Director Claudia Abend For Spots and Branded Content
Latin American director/editor and documentary filmmaker Claudia Abend has joined SUPERLATIVE for her first U.S. representation spanning commercials and branded content.
Abend's empathetic docu-style POV has garnered several international awards for the documentary films Hit (2008) and The Flower of Life (2018). Her spotmaking credits include such brands as Procter & Gamble, Nestle and Blue Cross/Blue Shield. SUPERLATIVE has already worked with Abend, together producing a new ad campaign for digital agency Tinuiti and The Honest Company, a consumer goods corporation featuring eco-minded products.
“We found Claudia through her poignant documentaries on the festival circuit,” said SUPERLATIVE creative manager Stefan Dezil. “We are excited about her textured narratives, emotional storytelling, and her powerhouse long-form storytelling abilities, currently on her third feature film. As SUPERLATIVE continues to build our brand after premiering our latest films at Sundance and SXSW, Claudia is the kind of multidimensional artist we are excited to partner with on branded content and beyond. Fluent in English and Spanish, her reel shows real prowess with infants, food and skin products, families both young and old. Great visual storytelling and inspirational doc work.”
Abend began her career in her native Uruguay, studying film and editing in college. “My dad would show me films like Citizen Kane,” she said. “I love cinema and became an editor. It was here that I learned all about communicating human emotion.”
From the get-go, Abend hit it big as a documentary director, teaming with Adrianna Loeff on Hit, a movie chronicling pop artists of Uruguayan music. Abend took home a Best Editing... Read More