Director Paul B. Cummings has joined the roster of Tuff Contender, the production company under the aegis of executive producers DJay Brawner and Max Rose. Cummings has directed commercials for Doritos, Dunkin’ Donuts, Hotels.com, K-Mart, McDonald’s and Taco Bell, and collaborated with agencies including Alma DDB, Dentsu, Deutsch, and Hill Holiday. Cummings was previously represented in the ad arena by Noble (formerly DUCK Studios).
“What drew me into Paul was a short film he created,” noted Brawner, referring to Margot’s Last Meal. “It was touching, it was endearing, and it made me cry–it was the opposite of his commercial work in tone, but visually at the same level as everything else he creates. I knew there was depth to him beyond the comedy we see in his commercial work, this made me want to bring him into Tuff without question. Upon meeting, the similarities in our approach to projects were unparalleled.”
Cummings enjoyed one of the early YouTube viral waves in 2006 with his stop-motion digital short Tony vs. Paul, which garnered over six million views and subsequently earned him a Webby nomination. Shortly thereafter, Cummings was signed by creative director John Andrews with production company ka-chew! where he deployed his stop-motion techniques for several brands including Red Vines and Yoplait’s Go-Gurt. In 2013, Cummings earned “Best Animated Film” from the One Screen Film Festival for his short Instagramimation. Stop-motion honed Cummings’ storyboarding methods, which contributed to his leap into live action work with celebrity talent including Paul Rudd, Sacha Baron Cohen, Jon Hamm, Zac Efron, Key & Peele and Adam DeVine.
Most recently, Cummings worked with Adult Swim to create live-action shorts for the Rick and Morty season finale featuring Emmy-Award winning actor Christopher Lloyd (Back To The Future, Taxi) and Jaeden Martell (It, Defending Jacob). Cummings also serves as creative executive on the upcoming animated series Summer Memories, an A&N Production created by Adam Yaniv and following the adventures of Jason and Ronnie as Jason looks back on the most pivotal summer of his life.
“DJay and I speak the same language when it comes to production,” said Cummings. “We both love a new project, the relationships with our crews and have an insatiable drive to create content interesting and exciting for clients. I look forward to going to bat for each other.”
