Dominic Savage
There are some good directors out there who will gladly apply their talents to your scripts in exchange for money.
There’s not a lot of point in talking about all the obvious ones, but I thought it might be worth giving a mention to one who’s not quite as well known.
Dominic Savage (reel here at QI films; interest declared – Stephen who runs QI is a friend of mine) rarely features in advertising award books because his day job is directing highly acclaimed and award-winning TV dramas (including Tuesday night’s Freefall). However, he’s available for ads and I’d say he’s worth a look because he’s better than anyone I know at presenting chunks of modern, everyday Britain realistically.
He often uses improvised dialogue, but also writes his own scripts, which means he understands why some dialogue works but some doesn’t (quite a handy skill if you’re doing a script with dialogue).
It might be worth saying that he came to my attention about five years ago when he did an ad for one of the country’s biggest clients. It was a very realistic slice of life that featured the product as the catalyst for a reconciliation after an argument. It was so realistic that the client refused to air it. I thought this was a great shame. This industry spends an awful lot of its time talking down to people as it attempts to hoodwink them into buying a pair of shoes or a chocolate bar. Heaven forbid anyone was grown-up enough to show a chunk of unvarnished life that simply reflected us back to ourselves and made us think.
Anyhoo, check out this sample of his movie Love and Hate and you’ll see what he’s really capable of: