On My Radar: Tom Wilson

What’s the most creative advertising idea you’ve seen recently?

I was really impressed with the Chasing Receipts commercial by Jara Moravec. It’s such an assured piece of filmmaking, full of great ideas without being show-off or ostentatious. I love how they avoided a slightly sneering depiction of office life, and created something much warmer, much more endearing.

What website(s) do you use most regularly?

Google Sheets. It’s how I always start any film project. Dull, but essential - especially when using a motion controller. I find it really useful to time every shot out precisely, since every fraction of a second counts for the robot arm (I also have a spreadsheet of all the movies I’ve seen since 2012, because I inevitably forget what I’ve seen).  

What’s the most recent piece of tech that you’ve bought?

The most recent piece of tech is actually something I consciously decided not to buy. I love using Procreate on an iPad, and it’s amazing for doing draft storyboard sketches, but I made a decision not to get one - I knew it would just be another screen for me to stare at. Instead, I bought a lovely Japanese brush-pen and use that to draw out my terrible storyboards, forcing myself to go back to a pen and paper approach. It’s more time-consuming, less efficient and looks way less professional - but since when has everything been about making life easier?

What product could you not live without?

Q-Take. I can’t shoot without it. I’m always editing live on-set, and I try to steal a new trick from every operator I work with (Speed ramping? No problem! Split screen? I got you! Rough comps? Um, I still have to ask for help with that one!). It means that, at the end of the shooting day, you already have a rough-cut.

What’s the best film you’ve seen over the last year?

(*Consults Google Spreadsheet*) I was really impressed by A Different Man, from Aaron Schimberg. The script felt like peak Charlie Kaufman, and the fantastical story was held together thanks to a blinding performance by Sebastian Stan (another amazing Romanian talent). He gives a masterclass in really grounded, subtle stagecraft. 

What film do you think everyone should have seen?

Mark Cousins’ The Story of Film: An Odyssey. It’s a bit of a cheat, because it’s not a single film, but a 15-hour series, but it’s an inspirational journey through the history of cinema that’ll send you off down rabbit holes you never knew existed. It’s also great at taking a much more global view of cinema, looking at directors outside the US/European bubble, like Ousmane Sembène and Assia Djebar. It’ll rejuvenate your love for film.

What’s your preferred social media platform?

This is a tricky one because I hate them all equally. I really, really, really despise social media and everything that it’s done to our culture, our communities, our relationships. It’s been an unmitigated disaster. That said, guys, please do give my Insta a quick follow!

What’s your favourite TV show?

Instead of going for one of the heavy hitters, I’m going to give a shout out to I Know This Much Is True, which I think was a little too bleak to get the acclaim it deserved. Mark Ruffalo is amazing, and his depiction of two brothers, one of them schizophrenic, is really special.

What’s your favourite podcast?

You Must Remember This, by Karina Longworth. I’m a real sucker for Old Hollywood history. There’s a great episode about screen starlet Thelma Todd, who died in suspicious circumstances. I’ve had plenty of PPM meetings in the building she used to own on the Pacific Coast Highway that’s meant to be haunted by her ghost.

What have you been most inspired by recently?

I finished reading the novel The Director, by Daniel Kehlmann, about GW Pabst, which is superb, full of amazing history about that generation of emigré German directors. It led me to his earlier novel, Tyll, which is equally inspiring.

If you could only listen to one music artist from now on, who would it be?

I’d love to choose somebody difficult and obscure like Demdike Stare (a duo from my hometown in Lancashire), but my honest answer would have to be another much more famous Lancashire export: The Beatles. They’re a band that’s inextricably linked to all our personal histories - something Rob Sheffield writes beautifully about in Dreaming The Beatles. Their best album? “Best of the Beatles” of course!

If there was one thing you could change about the advertising industry, what would it be?

Not working with the oil and gas industry would be a great place to start. 

Who or what has most influenced your career?

Bucharest [below], my home for the past 20 years. Living here gave me the freedom to experiment and start directing things, initially as a self-shooter. I made a slow but logical progression from print journalism to radio to documentary shorts to film, and if I’d stayed in the UK I wouldn’t have had the opportunities to do that. I still feel like the city might be Europe’s best-kept secret.