The Delicate Art of Director Searching

So, you've worked for months on the idea, finally sold in a script to the client...all you have to do now is shoot it right? It's obviously not as simple as that is it.

For once, as a creative, the ball is in your court and you're the one who's getting pitched to. It's a tricky business though, and often there's only a couple of days between selling the script and presenting a director. How do you know who is right? A good director really can be the difference between a decent and a cack spot, they can polish a turd, turn water into wine but equally turn wine into water.

I personally keep a stash of interesting and exciting directors in a safe place at all times - a mixture young and untried and ones I've always wanted to use. In an ideal world you'd always get the one you wanted, but of course things don't go according to plan. Getting treatments is usually a pleasant experience, seeing how someone sees and builds upon your ideas, but how much of a risk should you take?

Recently for example, after much umming and arring (is that right?!) we sent out some scripts to 3 different directors - a safe pair of hands, a young up-and-comer and an 'out there' wildcard. I'm not going to say who we chose, but it's really difficult. The safe pair of hands gives you a solid 'this is what I was expecting, I know how it'll turn out. Cool.' The unproven young up-and-comer then turns in something that he's obviously put his heart and soul into, exciting but solid, determined to make the most of his would-be big break. But then the wildcard mentalist supplies you with a treatment that makes you go 'Oh shite, this would be great...but it's a risk, how the hell is this going to turn out?! I don't quite know, but if we don't take a risk, how will we ever produce something exciting and original?' Decisions decisions.

I thought it would be interesting to go through a few directors we've used in the past.

Ben Gregor, Knucklehead.
McDonald's The Great Christmas Shopping Escape.
Watch here (not the best quality, apologies)

Ben's reel is great. A perfect mixture of dark, surreal and down-right piss yourself funny. He's also the loveliest guy, really easy to warm to, is well up for collaboration but has strong opinions that I personally really want from a director. You don't them to be too watery do you? He was also fantastic with the client in a cheeky monkey kind of way, which helps. He knows the limits but will push as far as he can.










For this spot it was paramount that people related to the escaping chap, something quite easy for most blokes. We also wanted a bit of surrealism, well actually we wanted loads of surrealism but that's just not possible in the real world (post below's content being the exception). The food shots were also dealt with in an acceptable way, the spot actually holds the record for the least amount of product in a McD ad, which was a result. We would definitely use Ben again, even though he does send us the odd abusive text...

James Brett, Plunge.
Nintendo DS Theatre idents for Channel 4 Comedy.
Watch here
And here
Oh, and here

This was a low-budget shoot that required an ambitious set (a giant Nintendo DS console to act as a stage) and someone who got our vision for how Nintendo ads should be: quirky and fun. We had to cast out net far and wide. One of us (5 creatives worked on it) saw some really amusing spots on James' reel involving rubber puppets shaking in an earthquake - really simple, really funny. When we first met him he turned up with loads of robots from one of his many eccentric collections...it was really odd thinking back, but the guy just had a passion and energy that made him shine.










He's very opinionated, but between us all we got to a really great place, it was a wonderful process. He understood everything we wanted to achieve, the low-fi-ness, the sense of imperfection and he really worked the Japanese theatre troop to the bone...the first set were all filmed in 2 days, so there wasn't much time for error. I would say it was the best experience production-wise I've had so far.

Duckeye, Rokkit.
McDonald's Snack Wrap Foldy-Uppy.
Watch one of them here

This was a tricky sell to the client. It was one of those things that was really hard to explain to the client..."yeah, it's a piece of paper that folds to reveal different images that together make up some sort of vague narrative." However, once they were onboard, just about, Duckeye (aka Kate and Jey) stood out by a mile...just so, so talented. We needed a stop-motion director with a real lightness of touch and a stupendous amount of creativity. Their reel is one of the most creative I've seen, mainly because it's predominantly made up of music videos, so they've been largely unrestrained!










Again it was a lengthy, slightly troublesome process, but the Duckeye are two of the most chilled people you can meet (even when McDonald's insisted on using slightly moving food shots on paper!) I think anyone else would have gone mad, but they just dealt with it and we were all really pleased with finished spots. If you get the chance, they are an absolute pleasure.

Of course, we've had a few not-so-great experiences, but I don't have the balls to talk about them in public! (not that anyone reads this...)