STORY has added director Ky Dickens to its roster for exclusive national representation in commercials. Dickens is a documentary filmmaker who has extended her reach to commercials and branded content centering on real people and docu-style storytelling. Recent credits include work for McDonald’s, Tylenol, Huggies, Kohler and the Illinois Lottery. She is currently working on a project for Hallmark.
Dickens’ directorial career spans more than a decade. Her 2009 documentary feature, Fish Out of Water, won four juror prizes on the festival circuit and was distributed internationally by Netflix and First Run features. Her second documentary feature, Sole Survivor, debuted on CNN in 2014 and became the network’s second highest grossing film. It was named Best Feature Film at the 2013 BMA Awards. Two more documentaries, Zero Weeks and The City that Sold America, are due for release next year.
In advertising, Dickens has previously worked through Chicago production houses MK Films Group and Conspiracy. Her work includes a documentary-style Mother’s Day video for Tylenol, in which mothers of varying backgrounds talk candidly about their nontraditional families. Among them is actress Lucy Liu, whose child was born via surrogate.
“My passion and experience lays in working with real people,” said Dickens, “Documentary style work is a booming part of the commercial industry. America has fallen in love with documentaries through Netflix and that has led to a demand for more authentic commercials.”
In other recent commercial projects, Dickens has profiled the founders of Koval, a Chicago distillery, and captured the energetic routine of truckers and real delivery workers in a campaign for Wrangler Workwear. “I take ownership of each spot, dive in and attack its unique challenge,” Dickens observed. “I enjoy the collaboration with creative directors, art directors, copywriters and producers and I love it when get a board that is going to impact how people, think, feel and act.”
Dickens received a Focus Award for Achievement in Directing from Women in Film. She is a member of the Gene Siskel Film Center Community Council.
Regarding her decision to join STORY, Dickens said that she was attracted by the company’s national reach, strong agency ties and track record for building directorial careers.
Joining Dickens is her longtime producer, Amy McIntyre, who will work with her and represent STORY’s other directors in the Midwest. McIntyre previously worked with Dickens, MK Films Group and Conspiracy, and has produced several of Dickens’ documentaries. McIntyre’s background prior to working at MK and Conspiracy was at Big Deahl productions in Chicago and as a line producer in New York.
