By Christine Champagne
LOS ANGELES—Noted commercial and music video director Samuel Bayer has signed with bicoastal RSA USA and its clips division, Black Dog Films, for U.S. representation. The director will also look into developing longform projects through the company’s motion picture and television production house, Scott Free. For the past 10 years, Bayer had been repped by Mars Media, a division of bicoastal HSI, which was the first company to rep him for spots.
"Contrary to popular belief, this is not a family run business-RSA welcomes Sam Scott," quipped RSA USA principal/director Tony Scott, who heads the company with his brother, director Ridley Scott.
Among Bayer’s final projects at Mars Media was Mountain Dew’s "Animated," via BBDO New York. The ad features extreme sports athletes who try to catch a can of the soft drink, but end up meeting fates reminiscent of perennially foiled classic cartoon characters like Wile E. Coyote instead. For instance, a mountain biker who jumps a canyon to catch the Mountain Dew can manages to grab it, but then he looks down and realizes how high up he is. His neck stretches, and he plummets to the ground. As well, a skier who tries to catch the can slams into a rock wall and flattens his body, which peels off the wall slowly.
"I’ve done a number of Mountain Dew spots, but this was one of best boards I’d seen in a long time," Bayer said. "It was just cool."
Known for creating visually powerful images, Bayer has also directed ads for Nike, Toyota, Pepsi, Packard Bell, Coca-Cola and Visa, and music videos for The Rolling Stones, Sheryl Crow, Cracker, Blink-182, Lenny Kravitz and Marilyn Manson. Last year, he donated his time to direct a short film, Torch Runner, for New York City’s official Olympic bid committee for the 2012 Games, which features athletes carrying the Olympic torch through the city.
"I was a New Yorker, and for a time had a loft by the Trade Center," said the director, who is now based in Los Angeles. "New York is always going to be in my heart, so I wanted to do something for the city. I also had access to shoot anywhere I wanted-Times Square at dusk, the Brooklyn Bridge, New York City police officers on horseback—so it was for a good cause, but it was also a great job to do."
Bayer’s other noteworthy credits include the Nissan spot, "Red Circles," via TBWA/ Chiat/ Day, Los Angeles, which won a Grand EFFIE in ’01, and his music video for Nirvana’s "Smells Like Teen Spirit," which was voted by MTV as the best music clip in the cable music channel’s history, according to RSA USA.
"He’s one of the rare directors who actually went to art school, and it shows in his work," said RSA USA managing director Jules Daly. "We’re thrilled-over the moon-to have him."
Bayer earned a fine arts degree from New York City’s School of Visual Arts, where his focus was on painting. While in New York in the late ’80s, he began working as a production assistant on music videos, paving the way for his directing career.
"I fell in love with the genre, and also realized that I was a really bad painter," Bayer said. "I’ve been thinking about that time in my life a lot lately, when I rolled the dice, stopped painting, and started trying to do film.
"Perhaps, to a lesser degree, I was looking for that kind of change now," he added of his shift from Mars Media to RSA USA. "HSI is absolutely a great company, but I needed change. I wanted to be around different people, exploring different kinds of work."
RSA USA offered not only a longstanding company track record, but a successful feature division as well. "I think it’s very impressive that it’s a company that’s been around thirty-five years," Bayer noted. "It’s equally impressive that it’s run by two directors who still work in commercials and have incredibly strong feature careers. It’s a unique company, and I’ve known Tony a number of years. I also really like Jules-her personality, and the way she runs the company. She was a big factor in my decision."
In terms of potential feature collaborations, Bayer said there have been discussions, but nothing concrete is in place as yet. "I’m mainly interested in trying to control the material as best as I can," he related.
Several of Bayer’s commercials can be seen at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, where they are showcased in the permanent film/video collection. Since he began directing in ’91, he has helmed more than 200 music videos and commercials.
RSA USA is represented by Holly Ross of Los Angeles-based Hello Red on the West Coast, Chicago-based Chris Karabas in the Midwest, and New York-based staffer Philip Fox-Mills on the East Coast.
Vatican, Microsoft Create AI-Generated St. Peter’s Basilica–For In-Person and Virtual Visitors
The Vatican and Microsoft on Monday unveiled a digital twin of St. Peter's Basilica that uses artificial intelligence to explore one of the world's most important monument's while helping the Holy See manage visitor flows and identify conservation problems. Using 400,000 high-resolution digital photographs, taken with drones, cameras and lasers over four weeks when no one was in the basilica, the digital replica is going online alongside two new on-site exhibits to provide visitors -- real and virtual -- with an interactive experience. "It is literally one of the most technologically advanced and sophisticated projects of its kind that has ever been pursued," Microsoft's president Brad Smith told a Vatican press conference. The project has been launched ahead of the Vatican's 2025 Jubilee, a holy year in which more than 30 million pilgrims are expected to pass through the basilica's Holy Door, on top of the 50,000 who visit on a normal day. "Everyone, really everyone should feel welcome in this great house," Pope Francis told Smith and members of the project's development teams at an audience Monday. The digital platform allows visitors to reserve entry times to the basilica, a novelty for one of the world's most visited monuments that regularly has an hours-long line of tourists waiting to get in. But the heart of the project is the creation of a digital twin of St. Peter's Basilica through advanced photogrammetry and artificial intelligence that allows anyone to "visit" the church and learn about its history. The ultra-precise 3D replica, developed in collaboration with digital preservation company Iconem, incorporates 22 petabytes of data — enough to fill five million DVDs — Smith said. The images have already identified structural... Read More