Slo.Graffiti, a satellite of Los Angeles-based Palomar Pictures, has added director Thor Freudenthal, whom the company will market for commercial, music video and short film projects.
Freudenthal has already completed his first job under the Slo.Graffiti banner: two Kids Foot Locker spots, "Puppet" and "Cocoon," for The Geppetto Group, New York. Hollywood-headquartered Milk & Honey Films supplied production services support for the ads, which were shot in Mexico City. "Puppet" has aired and "Cocoon" was in the final stages of postproduction at press time.
This marks the first commercial representation deal for Freudenthal, who was signed on the strength of a three-spot spec reel he wrote and directed, which consisted of "Shadow" for Chips Ahoy, "Spies" for Ritz Crackers and "Zoe" for Sony Diskman. The visual sophistication of the spots is seen in "Shadow," for example, which combines the animated image of a monster’s shadow on the wall with live-action footage. The piece depicts the devilish monster as urging a man to make a midnight raid on the cookies.
Slo.Graffiti executive producer Laura Howard related that an entertainment attorney sent her Freudenthal’s reel, piquing her interest in the young director. "It struck me as a very polished, well-thought-out filmmaker’s reel," said Howard. "When I met him, I learned that Thor has a very strong sense of what he wants to do—which is conquer the commercial market in a couple of years. I thought, with that kind of tenacity and determination, combined with his artistic talent, we could do really good things with him."
Howard assessed Freudenthal’s storytelling ability to be his main strength, adding, "I think his visual sense is really just punctuation for being able to put ideas together, which is the thing that most impressed me about him. That’s my main criterion, [because] we’ve set Slo.Graffiti up to feature people who are able to generate ideas from scratch." Freudenthal has also approached her with a number of spec ideas; Slo.Graffiti is considering developing one of those into a short film, Howard added.
Freudenthal said that he was impressed by Howard’s enthusiasm and vision for Slo.Graffiti as a collective of artists. "Laura has pulled together a group of very different people who have in common a huge passion for this medium," assessed Freudenthal. "The opportunity is there to rub shoulders with them and to learn from each other, and she very much nurtures that sort of environment."
A native of Berlin, Freudenthal attended the Berlin Academy of Fine Arts for two years. He then relocated to the U.S. and, after a summer internship at Los Angeles-based Rhythm & Hues, enrolled in Santa Clarita, Calif.-based California Institute of the Arts, where he studied filmmaking for two years. Sony paid for his last year of tuition at Cal Arts based upon a short animated piece he directed. Titled The Tenor, it features an ostrich that thinks he’s Pavarotti. Tenor won first prize at the Student Emmy Awards and appeared in Spike & Mike’s 1997 Festival of Animation.
In ’97, Freudenthal joined Sony Pictures’ digital character animation and visual effects unit, Imageworks, as a conceptual/storyboard artist and designer. For a short period, he worked in this capacity for assorted directors at Pavlov Productions, the now defunct commercial production arm of Sony. "Some directors were doing spec pieces and I helped out on that level," said Freudenthal. "Most of the time, I also looked over their shoulders to catch as much information as I could."
Three months into his Sony tenure, Freudenthal got the opportunity to work with a team in contributing to the story development of the ’99 release Stuart Little, which featured a photorealistic CG mouse character integrated into live action. Directed by Rob Minkoff, the film marked Imageworks’ first foray into character animation.
"[Minkoff] liked my artwork and my films," explained Freudenthal, "so he included me in that core group to talk about the story, the look of the movie and how to improve the script. Rob draws himself, and he likes to go through movies visually; much of the movie was developed as a storyboard and later scripted."
While production on Stuart Little was winding down, Freudenthal focused on developing a spec spot reel, with the intention of gaining representation. "At that point, I didn’t know much about advertising," he told SHOOT. "I just wanted to tell stories and create little worlds in thirty seconds, while maybe giving hints of what direction I want to take in this medium." Freudenthal received help from assorted contacts at Sony. An Imageworks producer put the director in touch with DP Steve Quale (the second director on Titanic), who shot two of Freudenthal’s spec pieces.
The reel quickly paid dividends: Shortly after inking his deal with Slo.Graffiti, Freudenthal was booked to shoot the aforementioned Footlocker job. Howard said that creatives at The Geppetto Group, while initially leaning toward more established directors, were persuaded by Freudenthal’s vision for the spots.
That vision was achieved with the contributions of topnotch support crew, including feature DP Flavio Labiano and noted creature designer/production designer Patrick Tatopoulos (production designer on Dark City, Independence Day). Freudenthal had met the latter when Tatopoulos designed the special creature effects for Stuart Little. Tatopoulos designed "Puppet" ‘s gothic-looking puppetmaster’s workshop—for which Freudenthal derived inspiration from Edward Scissorhands—and built the animatronic caterpillars that appear in Cocoon.
"It was the perfect job for Thor to start off on," said Howard, "with its blend of live action and special effects and that kind of Tim Burton-esque magic."
Besides Freudenthal, Slo. Graffiti’s directorial lineup comprises Doug Aitken, Luc Besson, Gregory Crewdson, John Dahl, Rafael Fernandez, Jenny Holzer, Barbara Kruger, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Neil Jordan, directing collective Game Theory, Robert B. Martin, Jr., Greg Motolla, Victor Robert, Tony Oursler and the Snorri Brothers. Additionally, the company and its parent, Palomar, have a representation deal with Los Angeles-based Fullerene Productions—a Web animation shop consisting of directors and designers—and an outlet on the Web for shorts via an arrangement with Internet film site iFILM.
