SHOOT will publish a Special Directors>e.dition on Monday, March 26, that will contain the entire Directors Series section from SHOOT’s March/April print issue (including extended versions of some stories).
The mix of profiles includes two directors who were squarely in this year’s Oscar race--Luca Guadagnino whose Call Me by Your Name landed four Academy Award nominations, including for Best Picture, and Bryan Fogel who won the Best Documentary Feature Oscar for Icarus. Both filmmakers also have production company affiliations for commercials and branded content--Little Minx for Guadagnino, and Supply&Demand for Fogel.
On the spotmaking front, we profile Martin de Thurah of Epoch Films who recently won the DGA Award as Best Commercial Director of the Year--the second time in his career that he’s earned that honor. And then there’s the prolific spot and music video duo, Dom&Nic, who reflect on their body of work, as well as their low-profile third team member. Dom&Nic are handled in the U.S. market by Station Film and in Europe by Outsider.
Another ad artisan, director DeMane Davis--who is repped by Sweet Rickey for commercials and branded entertainment--now finds herself committed to another discipline for the next six months or so as producing director for season three of Queen Sugar, Ava DuVernay’s acclaimed primetime series on Oprah Winfrey’s network OWN.
We also connect with accomplished narrative filmmaker Rebecca Miller who’s made her first foray into the documentary discipline with a personal, eye-opening look into the life of her father, the late, legendary playwright Arthur Miller. The documentary Arthur Miller: Writer premiered this month on HBO.
Rounding out our profiles lineup are two filmmakers who have scored on this year’s festival circuit. Alison Klayman with Take Your Pills, a documentary which was well received at the recently wrapped SXSW; and Rudy Valdez whose feature directorial debut The Sentence won the U.S. Documentary Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival. Klayman’s roost for commercials and branded fare is Washington Square Films while Valdez has come aboard the spotmaking roster of Park Pictures.
Meanwhile our ensemble of up-and-coming talent consists of a skate video filmmaker who just made a major breakthrough at Sundance; a director who established herself in London, has turned out some initial notable U.S. campaign work and is just taking on her first representation in the American ad market; a prolific music video director who has since diversified into commercials, branded content and shorts, having garnered his first U.S. production company home not quite a year ago; and a helmer whose work in fashion, music and dance has struck a responsive chord with brands and audiences.
SHOOT also delves into Leading Producers, gleaning insights from Peter Spears, a first-time producer who became a Best Picture Oscar nominee for Call Me by Your Name; Alison Benson, exec producer of HBO’s Divorce; Ken Biller, executive producer of Genius, covering season 1 on Albert Einstein and the much anticipated season 2 on Pablo Picasso; Mike Medavoy, executive producer of the limited series The Long Road Home; and Jane Root, who’s teaming with filmmaker Darren Aronofsky to produce One Strange Rock, a docuseries for National Geographic.
And then in our Cinematographers & Cameras series, we meet three DPs--one who recently won his first career ASC Award on the strength of The Crown; another who lensed Yance Ford’s Strong Island, nominated for this year’s Best Documentary Feature Oscar; and a lenser whose career as a full-fledged cinematographer was launched thanks to David Fincher with the Netflix series Mindhunter, which in turn has opened up new opportunities in commercials and branded content.