Johnny Hardstaff

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Johnny Hardstaff is a true New Age talent. With a background in graphic design, his moving image work has received worldwide critical acclaim. Having just signed with SONNY London for representation in Europe and fresh off the back of a Gold Ciclope win, the live action designer/director tells us about visual stories, moving to a new home and his metaphorical creative horn.

His cutting-edge moving image work has received worldwide exposure earning him a reputation as an innovative pioneer. He counts Sony, MTV, Toshiba and Skoda as clients and his DarkRoom short was selected for the Phillips-sponsored Parallel Lines project, offering a unique viewing experience for its audience.

You're now represented by SONNY, how's things been going so far?

Well, I've been with them for just three days now so I thought it best to prioritise and have wisely spent the time stitching my name into my new PE kit, covering my text books with sticky back plastic and practising the walk to 'SONNY' with my Mum. I'm lying. I have in fact spent the time experimenting with exotic teas and constructing a bigger trophy cabinet.

Tell us a bit about what you've been working on recently and how it's been going...

Over the last year things have started to get really exciting for me. I'm wholly in love with advertising in all its present and future guises. I love unusual and progressive opportunities to play and of late I've created a diverse body of work for a variety of clients - Sony, Toshiba, LG, Orange, Skoda, MTV and Philips to name a few. My film DarkRoom for the Philips Parallel Lines project did nicely at Cannes and picked up a gold at Ciclope in Buenos Aires last week.

DarkRoom is perhaps the most important piece of work for me right now. Given that I am a live action director/designer very well-versed in all things 3D/SFX, flights of fantasy on a larger scale are definitely my thing, and DarkRoom was a great opportunity to showcase my imagination.

I consider myself particularly fortunate that producers and clients invite me to play so much, but put simply, and at the risk of sounding like an amorous teenager, I just have the metaphorical horn for creative projects. I don't see these projects as a stepping-stone to somewhere else… This is it. Advertising is the destination. I see advertising as an art form (if you're doing it right).

Why did you move to SONNY?

My confidence has matured and I have patiently learnt my craft. Most importantly, I'm rich with ideas. Now feels like the right time to strike out. If you combine Helen Kenny's professional vision and experience (not to mention personality) with the incredible oeuvre of Fredrik Bond and Jeff Labbé, then who wouldn't want to be a part of that? Two SONNY spots win it for me hands down; Fredrik's Love for Smirnoff, and Labbé's Popcorn for St. John Ambulance. Both are remarkable. I certainly don't want to do what they do, but I would be proud to sit amidst them. We do different things, but I would like to think we do so with a similar level of quality.

I will always admire RSA UK, and I think the world of the three main personalities there, but I have fancied SONNY for some time now. We all need change and we all need to refresh our working environment from time to time, and in SONNY I recognise a top five production company that despite its relative youth is not only doing wonderfully right now but is set to do incredible things in the near future. Small but perfectly formed, SONNY strikes me as the most desirable and individual production company in London.

What's better, designing or directing?

I see the two as integral. I am a live action director first and foremost, but throughout the process I am very much a designer. It's this hybrid of live action and design that I love. Let's not put design in a ghetto. They belong together naturally now. My design background informs my own unique aesthetic sense and visual language. Precisely because of this I tell stories differently to other people. Visually, DarkRoom is a very good example of this.

I love directing talent but I do so differently. I love creating worlds and I do so with a designer's eye. In truth, I am probably my own best production designer, much to the consternation of the production designers that work with me, and my designer's 'attention to detail' does nothing to ingratiate myself with them but it does create very well-finished and original work.

I'm approached not just to interpret and execute scripts, but increasingly also to participate in projects at earlier development stages. This is where the designer/director comes in. I think it's the right mindset and because advertising is changing so quickly and unpredictably, I think design-based directors are naturally very well placed to effortlessly move with the times, or even actively initiate the changes. It's more than simply being about interpretation; it's about imagination. My one true love is to direct, but there's no medium that I would be uncomfortable working within, and that's the designer talking.

What qualities do you like best in a client?

Call me warped but I like the whole process. Not just the sexy fun bits. I like the meetings. I like the subtle politics. I can even enjoy a PPM. I like the collaborative process. I hate that 'going to war' thing that many directors do with clients, but I do want them to respect my advice and my direction and so my favourite qualities in a client would be trust, humour and a little bravery. It helps if they're easy on the eye too, but much like Christmas, it's always best to prepare for disappointment and then be pleasantly surprised.

What does creativity mean to you?

Imagination + craft + freedom of expression = something that makes me feel really very good indeed. As a teenager, when I found out that I'd got into St. Martins School of Art, I bounced around my mother's living room with such elation that I concussed myself on a light fitting. It's this feeling of euphoria that I chase in every project.

What have you seen/read recently that would be relevant to shots readers?

Try the newly restored (2010) Fritz Lang's Metropolis with the legendarily missing thirty-odd minutes re-inserted and the re-recorded orchestral score. There's no amount of restoring that can take care of the dreadful ending, but it's very different and fabulous nonetheless.

Read Paul Auster's New York Trilogy. It may be from the eighties, but I hadn't read it until last week, and it does something very, very unusual to your head. And watch (again) the entire box-set of Twin Peaks. I missed it the first time round by virtue of being too busy losing my shoes on the south coast. Yes, it's still dreadful in the middle (because there are some things that time can't heal) but front and back it's wall to wall gorgeous.

So what can we look forward to?

Spurred on by the Philips experience of creating film works that would not commonly be commissioned within advertising, I'm looking to create a forum for just such experiences. I have been doing a lot of writing towards this. It's early days, but it all looks very promising.

That's the thing; it's never been more exciting than it is now. Everything is changing, and if we're smart, we can harness this momentum and significantly widen the parameters within which we work. If we're smart, we can begin to create incredibly original, effective and inspiring commercial work that is only conventionally commercial in the sense that it has been paid for. I have never felt more energised and ambitious than now.