It’s been an eventful 10 or so months for Daniel and Katina Mercadante both personally and professionally. The directorial duo became a married couple last June. Back then they were at Epoch Films where they picked up considerable filmmaking momentum, initially as the directing team of Daniel Mercadante and Katina Hubbard. Among the directors’ notable credits during their tenure there were campaigns for Dick’s Sporting Goods out of Anomaly New York, and Facebook for Wieden+Kennedy, Portland, Ore.
Fast forward to January and two major developments unfolded for Daniel and Katina, a.k.a. The Mercadantes. Firstly the duo started a new career chapter by joining Park Pictures. And later that same month The Mercadantes on the strength of several Epoch-produced projects scored a coveted DGA Award nomination in the Commercials competition. Daniel and Katina Mercadante became first-time DGA nominees on the basis of Dick’s Sporting Goods’ “Sports Matter: Baseball” and Facebook’s “Big Sister” and “We Are Not Alone.”
The nomination also carried some historical weight as prior to 2015, the ranks of annual DGA commercial director nominees–which date back to 1980–had tallied but one female director: Amy Hill who as half of the duo Riess/Hill (with Chris Riess) earned a Guild nomination in 1999 (when they were with production house Tony K; the Riess/hill team is now on the roster of Paydirt Pictures).
This year alone there were two female nominees in the DGA commercial derby–Lauren Greenfield of Chelsea Pictures (for P&G/Always’ “#LikeAGirl” viral video from Leo Burnett), and Katina Mercadante as half of The Mercadantes. (Nicolai Fuglsig of MJZ wound up winning this year’s DGA Award for Achievement in Commercials.)
Becoming one of just three women in the history of the DGA Awards to earn a spotmaking nomination, Katina Mercadante related, “It’s important that women have a voice, that feminine takes on stories are told and shared–whether it’s through features, commercials, poetry, whatever the medium. The fact is that our three entries have a feminine influence to them. Daniel is an incredible filmmaker in his own right, a great director with his own aesthetic. But our partnership has a special element to it, bringing out the emotion of the stories a bit more.”
Daniel Mercadante observed, “I realize it’s a generalization but when you weave a feminine perspective into storytelling, it takes on a certain honesty and integrity. Women in the industry now hold men accountable to tell honest stories. Just look at Lauren Greenfield’s work which is so potent. The negative meaning to the expression ‘like a girl’ is not acceptable. I think that between Katina and I, as we go back and forth on the work, we together arrive at a more genuine, honest place that’s as pure as it can be.”
True stories
That purity and authenticity are direct results of what The Mercadantes strive for and channel their energies towards. Consider the “Sports Matter: Baseball” spot for Dick’s Sporting Goods. “The folks at Anomaly came to us with wonderful scripted stories about high school athletes,” recalled Daniel Mercadante. “We then tried to find real stories similar to the spirit of what was written on the page. We did the legwork, going to high schools in the greater Austin [Texas] area, going into locker rooms, asking teen athletes about their stories. We talked to kids who had struggled, asked them what inspired them. And we found a high school baseball pitcher whose grandfather had recently died. We told that youngster’s story.”
The real-to-life Facebook stories were also emotionally moving, as a girl in a unique indirect way let’s relatives know that she’s about to become a big sister. The Mercadantes in effect told the story of how a real mom informed her family that she was pregnant. And the other DGA-nominated Facebook piece introduces us to a community of cosplayers at ComicCon.
“Wieden+Kennedy came to us with a concept,” said Katina Mercadante. “They wanted us to make ads that were genuine with real people–but they also had to be visually appealing film in the Wieden+Kennedy standard. High filmmaking quality is possible within the context of social media.”
For the Facebook campaign, Katina noted, “We try not to make our footprint too big as directors. We like being flies on the wall, very observational. For the cosplayers, we blended in by having ourselves and our crew in sci-fi costumes, and then let the cosplayers do what they do. We like to go find the real things and change what’s written on the page to match up with that, to tap into the purity and heart of where the idea was generated from.”
While they have become known for real people fare, The Mercadantes don’t confine themselves to that. “We’ve worked with actors and we don’t consider ourselves documentary filmmakers,” said Daniel Mercadante. “We’re more a sort of documentary aesthetic and attitude that we apply in our approach to concepts. We are mostly inspired by good stores and emotional architectures we can tap into, or conceptual frameworks we can sort of build. I wouldn’t say we are prescribed to shooting only real people and real situations.
Filmmaking roots
Prior to coming together, Daniel and Katina had planted individual filmmaking roots. Katina directed and produced documentaries in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas, working on international film projects for the UN.
Daniel first made a splash as a founder/member of the directing collective Everynone, which earned inclusion into SHOOT’s 2012 New Directors Showcase largely on the strength of a short film entitled Losers. Prudential’s “Day One Stories” campaign which Daniel co-directed via Everynone, won a Cannes Gold Lion in 2012 and was featured on TED Ads Worth Spreading.
Katina met Daniel while making a series of commercials/documentaries. The twosome has been collaborating on films and commercials ever since, among the latest being an experimental short titled Breath (directed by Daniel, exec produced by Katina), providing assorted takes on the invisible life force of breath, and an AT&T campaign they co-directed which was about to debut at press time.
