To understand director Dewey Nicks, you need to know two names: George Dewey Nicks, Sr., and Austin Powers. George Nicks, a former creative director at Gardner Advertising, St. Louis, is the director’s father, who brought his young son along on shoots and helped spur his interest in photography. Austin Powers is, of course, an International Man of Mystery, the globe-trotting, babe-shagging spy who moonlights as a fashion photographer. He’s a fictional character to be sure, but one who reflects Nicks’ lighthearted view of his former career as a top magazine photographer. Whether he was shooting fashion layouts in Paris or photographing the late Princess Diana on her visit to Nepal for Vogue, Nicks tried to keep his subjects at ease. "It was important to me to hire assistants that I could joke around with, to make the shoot more relaxed," says Nicks, who can quote entire scenes from the Austin Powers movies. "Jokes are a great acid test. I could tell I’d have a hard time when a model would look at us like, ‘You’re crazy! You’re weird!’ And yes, I am just like Austin Powers. When I saw [actor Mike Myers] snapping his fingers and telling the model ‘Ignore this! Ignore this!’—I swear, I thought they had stolen that from me."
Though Nicks—born George Dewey Nicks III—made the leap to directing only four years ago, he has quickly made an impression. This year, Nicks, who is represented by bicoastal Epoch Films, was nominated for the Directors Guild of America (DGA) Award for best commercial director of ’99. Nicks received his nomination on the strength of Ameritrade’s "Let’s Light This Candle," "I Just Want to Be Held" and "Square Dance" for OglivyOne, New York; and Union Bay’s "Rocket Man" for Toth Design & Advertising, New York and Concord, Mass. Upon hearing the news, the first person Nicks called was his father, who had won a Clio for directing in ’69. Nicks remembers thinking his father’s job seemed like a lot of fun. "I loved going with him—it was like playing in Toyland," says Nicks. "It was exactly what I wanted to do when I grew up."
Photoplay
The freewheeling comedy of "Let’s Light This Candle" has roots in Nicks’ early life. In his late teens, Nicks shot photos of himself and his band and designed a promotional flyer—which he unwisely decided to make copies of at his after-school job. "I must have made about six hundred dollars worth of color copies; the janitor caught me, and I got fired," says Nicks. "My boss said that the janitor told him I was making copies of my head."
That’s exactly what Stuart, the office slacker character played by Michael Maronna, is doing at the start of "Let’s Light This Candle." But when Stuart’s boss tears him away from the copier, it is to seek advice on how to get started with online trading. The ad works, Dewey says, because at :60 it’s long enough to "let the performances breathe, to actually show what online trading is and how easy it is to do. It demystified the process."
To elicit the manic, motor-mouthed antics of Maronna, Nicks says he didn’t have to work very hard. "Michael acts the same way with everybody—doesn’t matter if he’s talking to the President of the United States, a bartender or a girl he likes. He kept coming up with great dialogue. I told him, ‘Keep giving it to me, brother, and I won’t make you say any line twice.’"
That’s not impatience, Nicks explains—simply a desire to keep moving things forward, an attitude he developed while he was enrolled in the fine arts program at Washington University, St. Louis. "I realized that people I respected in that program were having trouble getting work," Nicks says. "I went to my dad and he said, ‘You should go to the Art Center in Pasadena,’ because he wanted to hire every book he looked at from there. I took his advice."
Nicks focused on photography at the Art Center, and started landing freelance gigs while he was still a student. After doing a freelance shoot for Vogue, more opportunities followed, and he eventually shot print ads for Tommy Hilfiger, Guess and Union Bay. One of his first commercial opportunities came when Union Bay, via Toth Design & Advertising, hired him to turn his print campaign into a spot. "Toth didn’t have a huge résumé at the time," says Nicks. "We learned together, doing the creative hand in hand."
Nicks was signed with bicoastal Reactor Films when he helmed the Union Bay ads, and shifted to Epoch in ’97. Since then, he’s directed ads for Corning, Coca-Cola and Hugo Boss.
For a man who is so comfortable behind the lens, Nicks has opted not to be his own DP. "As the director, it helps to be out from behind the camera. I try to figure out how to bring some randomness to a process that’s been completely overthought. The stuff you find yourself going back to again and again in dailies is anything that isn’t planned, but that truly grabs you. You’ve got to cover the boards, but unless something comes out of left field, there’s no fun in it for me."
The DGA nomination was also a welcome surprise. "It’s exciting, especially because the other nominees did some of my favorite commercials of the year." Nicks’ next assignment is not high fashion or high finance, but a spot for the National Pork Producers Council via Bozell, Chicago. "I’m scouting a supermarket today!" he says happily. "A supermarket! Damn, my life is glamorous."c
