Saatchi New Directors’ Showcase Lights up Palais
We exclusively pick our favourite films from the impressive reel and talk to the directors.
For the 23rd time, the Saatchi & Saatchi New Directors’ Showcase thrilled its audience this morning with a mind-blowing reel that displayed films from some of the world’s most promising young directors.
shots gained exclusive access to the reel in advance of the Showcase and we hand-picked our five favourite films. It was tough, but you can see them below, along with insight from the directors who told us about the individual production processes and their plans for world domination.
The show’s theatrical introduction was conceived for the third successive time by independent creative team Jonathan Santana & Xander Smith, who created the theme Just for Hits, which aims to illustrate Professor Dawkins’ theory of memes and sets out to present the internet as an ‘incubator of creativity’, which affects the way we create and share ideas.
Dawkins, a world-renowned British evolutionary biologist who coined the term meme, made a special appearance with a talk on the subject of memetics, focusing on the transmission of ideas and information, cultural norms and societal expectations that evolve in a process akin to natural selection.
The winner of the Saatchi & Saatchi OK Go Music Video Challenge was also announced by the band’s singer, Damian Kulash, with the prize going to Nelson de Castro for his excellent promo. Watch the video and read about de Castro’s experiences making it, and hear what Kulash thought of the entries and the showcase in general in our video interview on shots.net.
If you missed the Showcase but you’re based in London, fear not. For the first time ever it will be repeated there, on Thursday 4 July and will be hosted by Robert Senior, chairman, Saatchi & Saatchi worldwide creative board.
Vellas: Leica M-Monochrome, Soul
Brazil, aged 31, signed to Sentimental Films
I started my career at big Sao Paulo agencies, such as Dm9DDB and Ogilvy Mather, working as an After Effects animator/art director. After a few years I lost interest in the agency model and got into production. One thing led to another and I became a director.
I’m also a photographer and I shoot mainly in black and white so when I got the script for Soul it was a pleasure. The inspiration for the film was the work of war photographers such as Joe Rosenthal and Eddie Adams, but the starting point for everything was the book Slightly out of Focus by Robert Capa.
We shot the spot in three days in Cuba but were there for ten. We were always uncomfortable – bad food, cold showers, government officials following us everywhere – but it was the special ingredient we needed because war photographers were always in bad situations so we felt a little bit like they did.
The biggest challenge was shooting Band of Brothers without a multi-million production. Also, two days before shooting the owner of a house we were going to use died of a heart attack. We found an alternative but it was falling down – any more than five people on the first floor would have collapsed it. We built an external plateau in three hours to make it work, but never got authorisation for the new location. Sorry, Fidel.
I`m working on two new spots right now; one for a car brand and the other one is an action film for a deodorant. I will shoot both in Brazil. My plans are to keep shooting. I like to travel and work, I think it helps to develop a certain different look to things. Maybe, in the future, I’ll work with feature films.
It’s incredible to be selected for the New Directors’ Showcase. The whole market, from clients to agencies, look at the new guys who are doing good work - people always want the new, the fresh, the modern, so just to be one of those directors gives me a lot of respect and new opportunities.
Ben Liam Jones & Andy Hunter, NSPCC/ChildLine It Follows Me Around
By Ben Liam Jones, UK, aged 29, signed to Mustard (UK)
I studied at the Society of illustrators, Artists and Designers and then got into filmmaking. I was flatmates with Andy Hunter, who worked in the content department at the NSPCC (which ChildLine is a part of) and had a brief that no agency had nailed the creative for. We came up with an idea together and pitched it to the client. The rest is history.
Researching the subject we learnt that a child suffering from physical abuse would often only demonstrate subtle signs of their ordeal. We liked the idea of creating a piece that focused on these subtleties, rather than the stereotyped ideas you often see.
It took about three months make the film. Andy and I wrote, directed, cast, location scouted, held boom mics, arranged taxes, haggled with agents, sorted catering - we had our hand in everything! We set the bar high and whenever the production company (Shoot Media) highlighted financial concerns with our ambitious plans, we rolled our sleeves up and found a way, even if it meant doing it ourselves. It was tough.
Since making this film I’ve signed with Mustard London. Through them I'm working on a few spots, with the aim of building myself so I can compete with the very best in the directing game. I recently lost a job to an Oscar nominee. If I want to work with the best creative talent that's the reality of the competition I now face. I want to win those jobs and produce work that I'm proud of. Andy has taken some time out to write a screenplay. He's now back and actively seeking directing and literacy representation. It's a crime that he hasn't already been snapped up.
Being selected for the New Directors’ Showcase completes an incredible year for everyone involved. Like the shots New Director of the Year Award we picked up, the Saatchi & Saatchi showcase is special as it exposes the film to the best advertising talent from all over the world. You only need to look at the previous directors who have featured in the showcase to know that it's a big honour.
I’ll be in Cannes at the New Directors Showcase, the Young Directors Award and of course the legendary shots Beach Party. After that I’ll be following the Rosé wine.
Ilya Naishuller: Biting Elbows, Bad Motherfucker
Russia, aged 29, signed to Great Guns
I’ve been watching roughly five films per week since I was about six and luckily I’ve never had my parents tell me what I could or couldn’t watch. I was 11 when I said that I’d be a director.
The video was inspired by my love of video games mixed with the desire to do something very energetic, unapologetic and raw. It took two hours to write, one week to find all the locations and plan the shoot, nine days to actually shoot it and three weeks of post.
We shot with no playback and had to make do with a lot of trial and error, constantly having to rethink every scene on our feet. Also, shooting the action scene with the attack dog wasn’t the most pleasant of experiences and the final shot with the baby took about five hours to get. We went eight days without any accidents and/or pain, incredible considering that every day was a stunt-filled shoot. It was on the easiest shot in the film where a stuntman misjudged the distance of a punch and lost a tooth.
Next I’m shooting the world’s first fully POV movie. It’s an English language action-adventure called Hardcore and it will live up to its name.
Being part of the New Director’ Showcase means that, for a moment, my name will be up there with artists who I highly respect and look up to. It’s also a great honour to be selected for a film that I made where I was largely left alone to shoot the way I felt was most appropriate.
Ian Cheng: Liars, Brats
USA, aged 29, unsigned
I became a director thanks to my mum taking me movie-hopping in LA every Sunday of my childhood from 11am – 9pm.
The inspiration for the video was Looney Tunes becoming truly Looney. It took a month to make including a 123D shoot with Liars, a motion capture shoot with acrobatic dancers, virtual choreography and three weeks of messing it all up.
The only creative challenge was to produce something alien. The world of computer graphics is highly codified now - there are strict standards guiding how to do it right and what's supposed to look right. What's more, the democratisation of VFX and animation software has also meant the passing down of these industry standards onto the workflow and imagination of the amateur. I wanted to sidestep this. I wanted to see if computer animation could be as dumb, out of control and unprofessional as real life often is. I get inspiration from Kim Kardashian’s Instagram, Tyra Banks’ Vine and Twerk Team.
At the Lyon Biennial in September I will premiere an animated live simulation that changes and evolves forever, like a video where the action never repeats, ever, and ages and erodes as you age and erode.
I’m honoured and excited to be included in the New Directors’ Showcase. Hopefully it means future commercial projects will drink my Kool-Aid and give me as much freedom as Liars and Mute (the record label) have.
Ryan Hope: Alpines, Lights
UK, aged 29, signed to Sonny London (UK), The Directors Bureau (US), Carnibird (France), Tony Peterson (Germany), Spy Films (Canada)
I got into directing after a lucky break when I was working in a bar in Manchester, which led to two days of licking stamps at the Ministry of Sound record label. I spent a few years working as a runner in commercials and promos, making contacts and learning about production and directing before building up my reel.
I wanted to make this video because I’d become a bit detached from why I got into filmmaking. I was making shit with hot girls: 'You look great, babe, look left, look right, smoke machine…’ yawn. Don’t get me wrong, it's ace, but I was craving making something with more substance. Being from Sunderland, I constantly hear so many bleak stories - as I’m sure a lot of people do in Thatcher’s Britain towns - of people at war and of war being one of two or three career options. Young lads dying for what reason? I have no idea. It’s a mess. In our industry we have the best, most innovative visual communicators going - and we sell shit, which is great and part of life, but it’s also great to use our skills for some other things every now and then.
I find a lot of inspiration from throwing myself into after parties in different cities. A lot of my mates are involved in electronic music globally, so when we travel we always get into the underbelly of a city. This leads to people telling you amazing stories and meeting amazing characters.
Next up from me is a really big, bad hip-hop video for 2 Chainz and Pharrell Williams. It’s my first huge hip hop video and I’m excited about that. They hit me up directly on Instagram and flew me out for a meeting the next day. That video had some great stories! With directing in the future I want to repay the faith that Sonny and the Directors Bureau have shown in me by winning them loads of awards, then get into movies and make Pulp Fiction 2.
It’s a huge honour to be picked for the New Directors’ Showcase. I'm totally stoked. You know you're doing something right when that call goes down.
I’ll be in Cannes, pretending to be really, really fucking important, supporting some really fruity drinks and donning my new sunglasses.
The other directors selected for the New Directors Showcase were:
Casper Balslev: Han Kjobenhavn; Daito Manabe: Nosaj Thing, Eclipse/Blue; Gevorg Karensky: GTA Rise; Jake Fried: Raw Data; Joe Pease: Peter Brings the Shadow to Life; Justin Anderson: Fleurs du Mal; Lucio Arese: Yu Miyashita, Mimic; Max Joseph: Follow The Frog; Miles Jay: Young Empires, White Doves; Nabil: Anthony & The Johnsons, Cut The World; Ohji Inoue: Keys n Krates, Treat Me Right; One Pixel Wide: Masters In France, Flexin’; Peter Atencio: Pulled Over; Wong Ping: No-one Remains Virgin
Membership
