Steps up commitment to U.S. market
By Millie Takaki
This year’s Super Bowl crop of advertising included a pair of Careerbuilder.com commercials directed by Suthon Petchsuwan of Santa Monica-based TWC for Wieden+Kennedy, Portland, Ore. The comedic spots advocated a proactive approach to bettering one’s lot in life and though it seems far fetched to regard Petchsuwan–one of the world’s most lauded commercial directors–as being in a career building mode himself, he in one distinct sense is in that position. And he’s taking a proactive stance on that front, specifically in his quest to draw more worthwhile work from the American ad market.
For one, he has set up his own Bangkok-based shop, Mum Films, exiting long-time Thailand production company roost Matching Studio. “‘Mum’ is my nickname,” relates Petchsuwan, explaining that he went entrepreneurial so that he can be more free to make decisions as to what work to take on and where. Rather than answer to a larger studio like Matching, he only has to answer to himself in his own house and can more easily free up his schedule to accommodate jobs of interest from agencies in the U.S. and for that matter in Europe as well.
Petchsuwan’s U.S. roost continues to be TWC, which he joined in 2005, making initial inroads into the stateside marketplace, first with a Snapple job for Cliff Freeman and Partners, New York, and most recently with the Big Game spots for Careerbuilder.com.
But there’s been a change in the U.K. as Petchsuwan now has continuity on both sides of the Atlantic–with TWC@Wanted in London handling him for Brit agency work. The TWC@Wanted banner was formed when TWC entered into a relationship with London’s Wanted Films (see separate news story). Petchsuwan had previously been handled by Stink, London.
Top Gunn Petchsuwan’s industry stature is perhaps best reflected in his performance on the awards show circuit over the years. The Gunn Report, which annually chronicles the most awarded agencies, production houses and directors, has only seen two directors place in the top 25 a record high eight times during that report’s nine-year existence: Frank Budgen of Gorgeous Enterprises, London, and bicoastal Anonymous Content; and Petchsuwan.
Director Petchsuwan has also topped that annual Gunn derby. For example in ’04 he was the most awarded director in the world. He earned that distinction on the basis of such comedic work as the Soken DVD Player campaign (“Kill Bill Kill Bill,” “Titititanic,” and “X-X-X”) for Euro RSCG Flagship, Bangkok, and Unif Green Tea’s “Worms,” out of BBDO Bangkok.
The Soken commercials tell the tale of how a malfunctioning DVD player, with incessant skipping, starting and stopping, can have a profoundly negative effect on its owners. In “Kill Bill Kill Bill,” a white-collar guy corners a co-worker in the office kitchen to tell him about the Kill Bill DVD that he rented. But he keeps freezing in mid-sentence and repeating himself over and over again. “Then she sta…sta…sta…sta…stabs one of the gangsters,” he describes. “Suddenly, suddenly, suddenly.” The other guy is clearly perplexed. The explanation is that the first man’s DVD player is fraught with technical glitches. Soken DVD’s tag is simply, “Plays smoothly.” The other two ads in the package are similarly themed, to great comedic effect.
Unif Green Tea’s “Worms” takes us out to a field where cartoon father and son caterpillars are climbing up a tea plant. The dad urges his lad to climb to the top where the best leaves are–but a human has beaten him to that destination. The child caterpillar sobs that it wants the top leaves. However the human tealeaf picker isn’t about to relinquish this choice crop. The caterpillar resorts to hypnotism but the person mightily resists. The exchange underscores that Unif Green Tea is brewed from only the best leaves.
Universal comedy Asked if he’s had to adapt his sense of ad humor for the American marketplace, Petchsuwan relates, “There is no Thai comedy, no China comedy, no U.S. comedy, no India comedy, no Apopo [New Zealander] comedy. In fact there is only funny or not funny.”
As for his Careerbuilder.com experience with Wieden, Petchsuwan said he was “excited” to shoot the campaign in Los Angeles. “The L.A. staff was friendly, highly skilled and had high-end technology that I have never seen before at any shoot…I try to learn at every shoot.”
Indeed he has learned a lot–and many have learned from him–over the years. Known for his prowess in comedy and storytelling, Petchsuwan brings agency creative sensibilities to the director’s chair. He broke into the directorial ranks in ’93 with Matching Studio. He came over to that production company from the agency arena. Petchsuwan had been an art director at Kenyon & Eckhardt, Bangkok, and then a creative director at SSC&B Lintas, Bangkok.
His directorial stock soared in the Far East, earning him international acclaim. Yet while Petchsuwan has made successful inroads into American advertising, he’s yet to direct for a European agency. Relative to the latter, he says, tongue firmly planted in cheek, “I don’t blame anyone and of course I never think about blaming myself.”
In that proactive “Careerbuilder” spirit, Petchsuwan notes that he’s looking to expand his global reach and is enthused over the prospects of having TWC representing him in the U.S. and the U.K.
Review: Writer-Director Andrea Arnold’s “Bird”
"Is it too real for ya?" blares in the background of Andrea Arnold's latest film, "Bird," a 12-year-old Bailey (Nykiya Adams) rides with her shirtless, tattoo-covered dad, Bug (Barry Keoghan), on his electric scooter past scenes of poverty in working-class Kent.
The song's question — courtesy of the Irish post-punk band Fontains D.C. — is an acute one for "Bird." Arnold's films ( "American Honey," "Fish Tank") are rigorous in their gritty naturalism. Her fiction films — this is her first in eight years — tend toward bleak, hand-held verité in rough-and-tumble real-world locations. Her last film, "Cow," documented a mother cow separated from her calf on a dairy farm.
Arnold specializes in capturing souls, human and otherwise, in soulless environments. A dream of something more is tantalizing just out of reach. In "American Honey," peace comes to Star (Sasha Lane) only when she submerges underwater.
In "Bird," though, this sense of otherworldly possibility is made flesh, or at least feathery. After a confusing night, Bailey awakens in a field where she encounters a strange figure in a skirt ( Franz Rogowski ) who arrives, like Mary Poppins, with a gust a wind. His name, he says, is Bird. He has a soft sweetness that doesn't otherwise exist in Bailey's hardscrabble and chaotic life.
She's skeptical of him at first, but he keeps lurking about, hovering gull-like on rooftops. He cranes his neck now and again like he's watching out for Bailey. And he does watch out for her, helping Bailey through a hard coming of age: the abusive boyfriend (James Nelson-Joyce) of her mother (Jasmine Jobson); her half brother (Jason Buda) slipping into vigilante violence; her father marrying a new girlfriend.
The introduction of surrealism has... Read More