SHOOT’s second annual New Directors Showcase–back in 2004–included a promising young talent in Elliott Lester who has gone on to an accomplished career spanning features, commercials and television. On the latter front, last month Lester made his most poignant splash to date with the premiere of Nightingale on HBO.
An HBO Films presentation in association with Brad Pitts’ Plan B Entertainment, Nightingale stars David Oyelowo, a Golden Globe nominee for his stirring portrayal of Reverend Martin Luther King Jr in Selma. In Nightingale, Oyelowo takes on the role of Peter Snowden, an emotionally damaged war veteran whose life unravels before us. Nightingale is a one-character drama in which Snowden’s solitude and isolation are front and center. As viewers, we never leave the house in which he lives.
This stark scenario in and of itself, said Lester, represented the project’s major challenge to him as a director. “One man in one house for ninety minutes can be daunting. Where do you put the camera? How do you keep the audience engaged? How am I to be engaged? It was quite terrifying to be honest.”
But it’s a challenge that Lester embraced, and one that wouldn’t have been presented to him if not for his producing partner, Josh Weinstock. “Josh found the script on a website. It was from writer Frederick Mensch who’s been writing for years and hadn’t gotten anything made. He had kind of given up. Josh told me I should read this. I found the story audacious and brave.”
Lester made the story a priority and committed fully to the project “like we were going right into production.” His can-do attitude and the merits of the story eventually got the proper funding and support–with the assurance that Lester could tell the story the way it was meant to be told. “One of the financing offers called for us to make this story a thriller. I wanted no part of that,” he said.”
As the story of Snowden became known in industry circles, A-list actors jockeyed for the role. Oyelowo came in, prior to his triumphant performance in Selma, and Lester had his Snowden.
Lester also assembled a creative filmmaking ensemble that contributed mightily to the film, including a past collaborator of his on commercials, editor Nicholas Wayman-Harris. “For an editor or DP, you want a point of view,” related Lester. “Nicholas is not a guy who’s shy about giving his opinion. An actor reinterprets material. So does an editor. I feel like Nicolas is one side of my creative brain. I trust him.”
That trust translated into Lester and Wayman-Harris next collaborating on the anticipated feature Sleepwalker, which is slated for release later this year and stars Richard Armitage, Haley Joel Osment and Ahna O’Reilly.
Wayman-Harris said that he actually first worked with Lester on a music video. “We just seemed to connect,” recalled the editor who cuts spots, branded content and other varied projects via Union Editorial. “It’s always great to work with a director who gives you stimulating visuals and allows you creative reign, to run with your vision.”
Wayman-Harris was immediately attracted to the Nightingale story. “I found it a real page-turner. Putting one person in a house under a microscope was a fascinating scenario. I was very intrigued as to how we could achieve this; it was one of the main reasons I was drawn to the script.”
From an editing standpoint, Wayman-Harris assessed that “one of the most challenging things [about Nightingale] is how to keep an audience captivated for an hour and a half, watching one guy in a house. I cut a lot of montage interludes to try and break up the pace, maintain the tension and stimulate the viewer.”
Wayman-Harris came to Nightingale having edited such films as Skyline (directed by The Brothers Strause) and The King Is Alive (directed by Kristian Levring of the influential Danish collective known as Dogme 95). On the commercial front, the editor’s work includes the Emmy-nominated VW Super Bowl 2012 teaser “Star Wars the Bark Side” out of Deutsch, as well as spots for Haagen-Dazs (Goodby Silverstein & Partners), Carhart (client direct), the launch of the new Mustang with Steve McQueen (JWT Detroit), and Hyundai (GreenLight) with Mark Ronson for the Grammys.
Wayman-Harris wasn’t the only artisan with commercialmaking experience whom Lester gravitated to for Nightingale. But unlike Wayman-Harris, these other spot-experienced artists had not collaborated with Lester before as a director. Still, Lester was impressed by their prior work and felt their sensibilities would serve and advance Snowden’s story. Among these key contributors were cinematographer Pieter Vermeer, production designer Richard Lassalle (whose long-form credits include the Simon West-directed The Mechanic) and costume designer Bic Owen (with feature credits such as Big Sur, Better Living Through Chemistry, and the Graham Henman-helmed Bone in the Throat). Vermeer, Lassalle and Owen too went on to work on Sleepwalker with Lester.
Prior to Nightingale, Lester had collaborated with DP Vermeer–but that was before Lester was a full-fledged director. It was back when Lester was an assistant director to Tony Kaye on commercials, teaming with Vermeer on select projects.
“Pieter is a massively talented commercial cinematographer. I love this guy and jumped at the chance to work with him on Nightingale,” said Lester. “Richard does massive production design work, including some huge Target campaigns. Bic is a tremendously talented costume designer. They all brought a lot to Nightingale and then Sleepwalker.”
Lester began his career as a music video (for such artists as 30 Seconds to Mars, The Fray, Santigold) and commercial (McDonald’s, Lexus, Sony) director, with his work garnering Clios, Telly Awards and Cannes Lions. Lester made his theatrical filmmaking debut in 2006 with the ensemble feature Love Is The Drug, which debuted at Sundance. He helmed the Jason Statham/Paddy Considine starrer Blitz for Lionsgate in 2011. Additionally, Lester directed and produced the digital series Chop Shop for Paramount Insurge and Bandito Brothers. His producing chops are also evident on the feature front as he is EP on the upcoming Jerry Jameson-directed Captive, a drama thriller starring Oyelowo and Kata Mara, and the Dan Baron-helmed Basmati Blues starring Brie Larson and Donald Sutherland.
Currently Lester is on the roster of production house Bandito Brothers for commercials and branded content. In fact, spotmaking is a familial pursuit. Lester’s brother Gavin is an executive creative director at Deutsch LA.
Transparent
Amazon’s series Transparent has fared well on the awards show circuit thus far, highlighted by series creator Jill Soloway earlier this year winning the DGA Award in the TV Comedy category for “The Best New Girl” episode. Transparent also earned a pair of Golden Globe Awards–for Best Television Comedy Series, and Jeffrey Tambor for Best Performance by an Actor in a TV Series.
Transparent additionally garnered the American Film Institute (AFI) Award for TV Program of the Year. In bestowing the honor, the AFI stated: “Transparent illuminates the role of television in changing global perceptions through laughter and love. Jeffrey Tambor is transcendent as a divorced dad true to herself in Jill Soloway’s emotionally universal series–one which challenges notions of genre and gender by celebrating the idea that we’re all human, no matter who we are on the outside.”
Soloway, though, isn’t resting on the laurels of season one. During this past weekend’s Diversity Speaks session at the Los Angeles Film Festival, Lady J., a staff writer on Transparent, explained that Soloway realized that while the show has transgenders in the producer ranks, among the actors, in makeup and hair, there was no trans writer. So Soloway set out to do something about the lack of screenwriters who are transgender.
Lady J. recalled that Soloway asked the transgender community to submit short stories. She would select the best of those stories and train the authors in screenwriting for television.
Six trans writers received a crash course in screenwriting. One of them was Lady J. who ultimately got a staff writing gig on Transparent. Lady J. said the experience has been a dream come true, and that the show’s writing staff has been generous and giving. “I haven’t felt tokenized in the room,” said Lady J.
As the transgender movement gains momentum and a higher profile in the public consciousness, Lady J. observed, “We all drive each other forward.”
This is the fourth installment of a 14-part series that explores the field of Emmy contenders, and then nominees spanning such disciplines as directing, cinematography, producing, editing, animation and visual effects. The series will then be followed up by coverage of the Creative Arts Emmys ceremony on September 12 and the primetime Emmy Awards live telecast on September 20.
