“I always try to bring in as odd a list as I possibly can,” said Tom Eslinger about his approach towards helping to shape the annual Saatchi & Saatchi New Directors’ Showcase. Eslinger, Saatchi’s worldwide digital creative director and executive creative director of integrated production, values sharing surprise discoveries via the Showcase, which is an increasingly daunting proposition given the 365/24/7 nature of the online world.
“People love to come to the New Directors’ Showcase but even at that it’s common to hear them say they saw a dozen of the pieces already during the course of the year. So we dig deep for something new,” related Eslinger. “I’d guess that this year not a lot of them have previously seen [director] Wong Ping’s No-One Remains Virgin video [titled ‘Under the Lion’s Crotch’]. And this Wong Ping piece is quite polarizing, a good fit for what we try to do which is to always challenge the audience.”
The clip from Hong Kong-based director/illustrator/animator Ping is among the pieces of work that especially stood out for Eslinger such as director Joe Pease’s skateboarder’s video “Peter Brings The Shadow To Life,” helmer Lucio Arese’s experimental video “Mimic,” director Ian Cheng’s music video “Brats” for the band Liars, director Nabel’s music video “Cut the World” for Antony & the Johnsons, Daito Manabe’s music video “Eclipse/Blue” for Nosaj Thing, and director Ryan Hope’s “Lights” music video for Alpine.
The latter–which shows the tragedy of war from the perspectives of a soldier and his girlfriend–resonated for Eslinger. “It was a beautiful clip, an emotional piece that doesn’t strike you until the end. I think you have to watch it a few times to fully appreciate it.” Director Hope is with production house Sonny London.
“Brats” from New York-based director Cheng was described by Eslinger as “so weird yet I love the way it looks, its energy. It’s almost like a Elmer Fudd cartoon that’s been beamed into outer space and spit back at us. In recent years, everything we’ve seen in 3-D modeling is made to look precise and beautiful. By contrast, this is rough, ugly, not precise, giving a real urgency and energy to the music.”
Aussie director Pease, who currently resides in Cardiff, Calif., turned out “Peter Brings the Shadow to Life,” which depicts the shadow of a skateboarder in action. “Great technique, beautifully photographed, beautiful storytelling and on the weirder side, aided by technique and technology,” assessed Eslinger.
Also hailing from Australia yet living in L.A. is Nabil who’s repped by Academy Films, London, and its A+ division specializing in longer form content, digital fare and music promos. Nabil directed “Cut the World,” a clip featuring Willem Dafoe, Carice van Houten and Marina Abramovic. “It’s a proper old school music video with big stars yet comes from an arty, cool place–a beautiful piece of filmmaking,” said Eslinger.
The experimental video “Mimic” from Cuneo, Italy-based director Arese finds objects clashing in a cattle market/warehouse. It’s a bit of an eclectic design/architectural fest driven by the electronic music of Yu Miyashita. “If you tried to watch this kind of imagery for too long, your brain would hurt,” quipped Eslinger. “But as it is, this experimental video is crafted perfectly in time and space.”
And Tokyo-based director Manabe of production house Rhizomatiks Co., Ltd. scored Showcase inclusion on the strength of the “Eclipse/Blue” music clip featuring a unique brand of performance art for which, observed Eslinger, computer graphics did much of the heavy lifting in front of a locked-off camera. “It’s a music video that plays like an experimental art piece–one which I think will inspire others to create their own innovative visuals.”
Full lineup
Besides the seven aforementioned directors, there are 11 other individual helmers, making for a total of 18 soloists in the 2013 Saatchi & Saatchi Showcase, now in year 22.
The field also features an interactive directing trio, the London-based One Pixel Wide consisting of designer Caleb Al-Jorani, developer Peter Browse and creative strategist Joe Koprowski. Each attended different art colleges but met while working together at an agency creative department. Combining their different skill sets, they work under a collective banner and earned their Showcase slot on the strength of the music video “Flexin” for the band Masters in France. Al-Jorani and Browse currently work as digital designer and creative technologist, respectively, at London ad agency Beattie McGuinness Bungay.
In addition to directors Ping, Pease, Arese, Cheng, Nabel, Manabe and Hope, the other Showcase solo helmers are:
o Danish director Casper Balslev who’s represented by RSA Films. His showcase entry was the short fashion film Han Kjobenhavn.
o Director Ben Liam Jones of London production house Mustard Film Company for the NSPCC/Childline long-form online spot “It Follows Me Around.”
o Boston-based director Jake Fried for his brand of hand-drawn, experimental animation as reflected in the short titled Raw Data.
o Toronto-based Ohji Inoue who scored with the Keys N Krates music video “Treat Me Right.”
o Russian Gevorg Karensky–who’s based in Los Angeles and handled by London production house Outsider–garnered a Showcase slot for his student film Grand Theft Auto: RISE, which has amassed some 13.5 million YouTube views.
o Brazilian director Vellas of Sentimental Filme, Sao Paulo, for his “Soul,” a cinema commercial introducing the Leica M-Monochrom, a digital camera that shoots in black and white. The documentary-style piece–from agency F/Nazca Saatchi & Saatchi and produced by Sentimental Filme–is told from the POV of the camera itself while being used over the decades by a war photo journalist.
o Miles Jay who’s handled by production houses OPC Family Style in Canada and B-Reel in the U.S, U.K. and Scandinavia. Jay copped the Showcase slot for Young Empire’s “White Doves,” a music video that seamlessly integrates Facebook data into the narrative, giving the viewer a role in the film.
o Max Joseph of Wander Films, Los Angeles, for the Rainforest Alliance’s “Follow the Frog” which won TED’s Ads Worth Spreading Challenge. Joseph is repped for commercials by Hungry Man.
o Peter Atencio of Gifted Youth, Los Angeles, for the Funny or Die short Pulled Over.
o Justin Anderson of Epoch Films, London, for Agent Provocateur’s short film Fleurs du Mal promoting its Soiree collection of lingerie.
o And Moscow-based Ilya Naishuller who’s handled by Great Guns, London, for his Biting Elbows music video, “Bad Motherfucker.”
Geographically, directors with U.K. production affiliations seemed to be most prevalent in this year’s Showcase mix. “Last year it was American, two or three years earlier we had the reel of Latin America,” recalled Eslinger. “It seems that the heat moves around to different places from one year to the next.”
Music Video Challenge
Separate from its New Directors’ Showcase lineup but in the same spirit of discovering fresh filmmaking talent, Saatchi & Saatchi for the third straight year held a Music Video Challenge designed to unearth new directors from around the world with the Grand Prize winner announced and honored during the Saatchi New Directors’ Showcase event in Cannes.
Per the competition, filmmakers were invited to create music videos for OK Go’s brand new track, “I’m Not Through.” Saatchi teamed on this year’s initiative with Talenthouse, a global platform for creative collaboration, BUG Music Videos and OK Go, the Grammy Award-winning band known for their inventive music videos.
OK Go’s lead singer Damian Kulash headed up a judging panel which also included members of the Saatchi worldwide creative board and representatives of BUG. This jury selected 12 finalists and the Grand Prize winner who was Nelson de Castro. Kulash introduced de Castro’s “I’m Not Through” video at the Saatchi Showcase. And the director was on hand, having received as Grand Prize winner an all expenses paid trip to the Cannes Lions Festival.
Director de Castro topped a field of a dozen finalists, the other directors being Eran Amir, Carolina Aguirre Barrandeguy, Sara Brink, Roberto Espinosa, BJ Golnick, Alice Lam, the team of Benjamin Minot & Jacqueline Bulnes, Shan Palmer, the duo of Riccardo Savli & Alberto Falcone, Lavado Stubbs and Jonah Sugden.
Earlier based on a public online vote, Golnick’s clip rendition of “I’m Not Through” was the People’s Choice winner.
Video sampling
Here’s a sampling of work in the 2013 Saatchi New Directors’ Showcase, focusing on several of the projects cited by Eslinger:
Peter Brings the Shadow to Life from predatory bird on Vimeo.
Alpines | Lights from Ryan Hope on Vimeo.
No One Remains Virgin《獅子胯下》”Under the Lion Crotch” MV from WongPing on Vimeo.
Lucio Arese | Yu Miyashita – Mimic from lucio arese on Vimeo.
