Director Paul Haggis, who helmed the 2006 Best Picture Oscar winner Crash, has signed with Saville Productions for exclusive commercial representation in the U.S. Haggis is the first person to win two Best Picture Academy Awards in a row. In 2005, Million Dollar Baby earned Best Picture distinction; Haggis was a producer and wrote the adapted screenplay for that Clint Eastwood-directed film.
Haggis’ writing for Million Dollar Baby garnered an Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay; the next year he won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay (shared with Robert Moresco) on the strength of Crash. He became the first individual to have written Best Picture Oscar winners in two consecutive years.
Haggis also earned a Best Director Oscar nomination on the basis of Crash. And his third Oscar nom for writing came in 2007 for the Eastwood-helmed Letters From Iwo Jima (shared with Iris Yamashita for Best Original Screenplay)
Known for his dramatic storytelling, Haggis–who was earlier repped for spots by @radical.media–comes aboard a high-profile roster of feature film directors at Saville, including Martin Campbell, Barry Levinson, James McTeigue, Bryan Singer, Wim Wenders and Roger Michell. Saville also maintains a lineup of established commercial directors such as Lance Kelleher, David Harner, Daniel Borjesson, Ago Panini and Robert Nylund.
Saville executive producer Rupert Maconick said of Haggis, “Paul’s modern human stories are the perfect marriage for advertising concepts in the U.S.” Maconick noted that Saville is already in its first production together with Haggis, a job promoting a sports product out of a New York ad agency. The Haggis-directed spot is scheduled to debut in June on Father’s Day.
Saville Productions is represented on the East Coast by Michael Eha, in the Midwest by Nikki Weiss and on the West Coast by Connie Mellors and Ellen Dempsey-Hines.
Director Cassandra Brooksbank Joins Monument Content For Spots and Branded Content
Monument Content has signed director Cassandra “Cassie” Brooksbank for U.S. representation spanning commercials and branded content. She brings to her directing and storytelling the experience and skills of a writer, conceptual artist, editor and visual effects artist.
Her body of work as a director includes Pepsi’s “Selfie” featuring Lionel Messi amid a flurry of fans, Barclays madcap women’s Soccer League spot where she collaborated closely with the agency to develop the creative, ultimately winning the Grand Jury Prize at the Sports Industry Awards, and a grass-roots campaign for Fellow Coffee. The latter just didn’t brew buzz; it helped raise $1.2 million on Kickstarter.
Prior to joining Monument Content, Brooksbank had been repped in the U.S. for commercials by production house Hey Wonderful.
On the long-form front, she is repped by CAA for film and television. And on the horizon is her debut feature, My Masterpiece, produced by Sylvester Stallone’s Balboa Productions and backed by Amazon.
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