CoMPANY Films, the boutique production house headed by executive producers Robin Benson and Richard Goldstein, has signed director Paul Fox for commercials and branded content. Fox has helmed the majority of episodes for the comedy Schitt’s Creek, starring Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara. The Canadian network (CBC) sitcom has found an audience in the U.S. on POP TV.
Additionally Fox is currently directing the new CBC comedy series Workin’ Moms, created by and starring Catherine Reitman.
Both Benson and Goldstein were drawn to the comedic touches that director Fox brought to Schitt’s Creek. “We find Paul’s work filled with gems, whether the lines and moments are scripted or improvisational,” said Benson. “Paul has a unique ability to bring out the loopiness and warmth of the characters without making them seem eccentric just for the sake of being eccentric. His reel feels free and interesting to us, and we love getting commercials for a director that hasn’t done them before. His ‘newness’ is exciting to us. As for Schitt’s Creek, it’s a masters class in awkward, ironic comedic that finds its way to meaningful places.”
For his part, Fox is looking forward to a new directorial challenge. “Commercials are an area that I wanted to explore, but it had to be through the right company,” he said. “Robin and Richard feel my type of direction/storytelling has a ‘commercial’ style that will appeal to clients. CoMPANY also has an enviable track record of taking feature and TV directors and keeping them active in commercial projects.”
On the strength of Schitt’s Creek, Fox won a Canadian Screen Award for Best Direction in a Comedy Program, as well as a pair of Directors Guild of Canada Award nominations. Of Schitt’s Creek, Fox said, “They’re funny, but they’re also wonderful stories.” Fox is also currently in development on several feature projects, including a comedy titled The Great Perhaps.
Fox graduated from New York’s School of Visual Arts, where his student film Last Round Up got an invite from the Sundance Film Festival. His first feature, The Dark Hours, received numerous awards from festivals in his native Canada and around the world. His follow-up coming-of-age comedy titled Everything’s Gone Green (written by Generation X author Douglas Coupland) was well received at the Toronto Film Festival where it premiered.
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Two first-time feature directors who are generating Oscar buzz this awards season were front and center this past weekend at AFI Fest in Hollywood. Rachel Morrison, who made history as the first woman nominated for a Best Cinematography Oscar---on the strength of Mudbound in 2018--brought her feature directorial debut, The Fire Inside (Amazon MGM Studios), to the festival on Sunday (10/27), and shared insights into the film during a conversation session immediately following the screening. This came a day after William Goldenberg, an Oscar-winning editor for Argo in 2013, had his initial foray into feature directing, Unstoppable (Amazon MGM Studios), showcased at the AFI proceedings. He too spoke after the screening during a panel discussion. The Fire Inside--which made its world premiere at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival--tells the story of Claressa “T-Rex” Shields (portrayed by Ryan Destiny), a Black boxer from Flint, Mich., who trained to become the first woman in U.S. history to win an Olympic Gold Medal in the sport. She achieved this feat--with the help of coach Jason Crutchfield (Brian Tyree Henry)--only to find that her victory at the Summer Games came with relatively little fanfare and no endorsement deals. So much for the hope that the historic accomplishment would be a ticket out of socioeconomic purgatory for Shields and her family. It seemed like yet another setback in a cycle of adversity throughout Shields’ life but she persevered, going on to win her second Gold Medal at the next Olympics and becoming a champion for gender equality and equitable pay for women in sports. Shields has served as a source of inspiration for woman athletes worldwide--as well as to the community of... Read More