Commercial Production Company Thomas Winter Cooke Launches in Los Angeles
Santa Monica (Jan. 21, 2004) -- Executive producer Mark Thomas, feature film producer Ralph Winter and director Phil Cooke have launched a new commercial production company under the banner Thomas Winter Cooke. Drawing on Thomas’ expertise in commercial production (he was previously managing director of Area 51 Films) and Winter’s lengthy experience in features (he is the producer of such films as X-Men, X2 and Planet of the Apes), the new company aims to become a national force in commercial production while creating opportunities for its directors to move into long-form.
In addition to Cooke, Thomas Winter Cooke has signed three directors for exclusive national representation in commercials. They include British director James Rouse, who will be represented in the United States for the first time, as well as Greg Kiefer and Jeff France. The company expects to sign additional directors in the near term. The company will be represented by Doug Stieber in Chicago and by Mary Ford in New York. In its first project, TWC has produced spots for Home Depot and The Richards Group, Dallas, directed by Cooke. [an error occurred while processing this directive]According to Thomas, the new company’s mission is first and foremost to produce great commercials, and in doing so to promote the long-term career development of its directors. “It sounds like a cliché, but it is all about the work. That why we seek relationships with directors who want to press the development and the growth of their commercial careers and be given a legitimate opportunity in long-form,” he said. “We present a unique opportunity.”
What makes the long-form opportunity at Thomas Winter Cooke unique is Winter, added Thomas, noting that he has produced more than two dozen studio films, including a number of films with budgets in excess of $100 million, and is currently under contract with Fox. Winter has three films set for release in the coming months, including Shoot or be Shot, a comedy starring William Shatner and Harry Hamlin, Blizzard, a family movie directed by LeVar Burton and starring Whoppi Goldberg, Christopher Plummer, Brenda Blythen and Kevin Pollak, and the recently released Hangman’s Curse, a movie based on a Frank Perretti novel, directed by Sundance winner Rafael Zelinski, and starring David Keith and Mel Harris.
For Winter, he sees the new venture as a way to identify promising filmmakers and new material that has not already found its way into the studio system. However, he cautions that making the leap from short-form to long-form is not simple. “Any director whom we sign must first be a proven talent on the commercial side and not someone expecting to make an immediate move into features,” he explained. “It is a difficult transition to go from working regularly as a commercial director to spending a year of your life developing, shooting and finishing a feature.”
Thomas left Area 51 Films seven months ago after seven years at its helm as Managing Director. A founder of the company, he built it into a respected national force in commercial production with a roster that had included such filmmakers as John Adams, Scotty Bergstein and Jordan Brady. He won assignments from agencies in every major market in the country for such accounts as McDonald’s, KFC, Adidas, Bud Light and Chrysler. Through his work with directors such as Adams and Bergstein, Thomas earned a reputation for having a keen eye for talent and a shrewd ability to develop directors.
Born in San Diego, Thomas began his career there with a regional company that relocated to LA and later became Production Partners. He later headed sales for Melvin Sokolsky’s Sunlight Pictures and Stiefel & Company. Irv Blitz, William Dear, Steve Tobin, Mark Coppos, Peter Kagan, Jon Francis, Michael Haussman and Ross Cramer are among the many commercial directors with whom he worked along the way.
Cooke’s experience as a director primarily lies in television and documentaries. His credits include The Millennium Chorus, a television music special featuring Jennifer Holliday, and Michael Crawford that was broadcast in 160 countries. He also directed the documentary Moving Targets – Why Kid’s Kill, a brutal examination of the violence in American high schools, and served as 2nd unit director for special effects sequences of the feature film The Omega Code.
Cooke has directed shoots in more than 30 countries and is among the few to bring a film crew to the headwaters of the Amazon. He also traveled with Bedouins in the deserts of the Middle East, led one of the first crews to record the aftermath of Hurricane Hugo in Jamaica, and documented a military coup in Nigeria.
As a co-founder of Thomas Winter Cooke, Cooke seeks to broaden his experience as a commercial director. “I am very impressed with all that Mark Thomas has accomplished in his career,” he said. “He has keen insights and knows what it takes to develop directors in the commercial market and take them from where they are to where they want to be.”
From Thomas’ perspective, Cooke’s talent as a storyteller and broad international experience give him intriguing potential as a commercial director. “Phil’s work is beautifully shot, but what most impressed me was its humanity; he has a great sense for people,” Thomas observed. “People are not props to him, but rather a vital part of the storytelling.”
James Rouse
Rouse launched his directorial career two years ago and has gained considerable notoriety in the U.K. in particular for his Internet campaign for condom maker Trojan. The three spots purport to show scenes from the Trojan Olympics where the traditional sports of Judo, weightlifting and gymnastics are given a wry, sexual twist. (They are posted on the site: http://www.trojangames.co.uk/. Rouse’s work also includes a hilarious short film for appliance maker Bosch about a nerdy sales executive’s Siddhartha-like quest to become one with the company’s brand. (It can be viewed at http://www.planningaboveandbeyond.com/People/ExoticaGallery/brandfilms/index.php).
Rouse was born in the UK and attended Middlesex University, London. He later studied copywriting and art direction at the School of Communication Arts in Edinburgh. Early in his career, he worked as an art director and copywriter at BMP, London, where he helped to create print campaigns for Volkswagen, Barclaycard and Sony, and at TBWA, London, where his credits included an award-winning poster campaign for Thermos, as well as print work for Virgin, Wrangler and Network South-East.
In 1995, Rouse joined Euro RSCG Wnek Gosper, London, where he broke into broadcast advertising via work for Abbey National Bank, Microsoft, Peugeot and Cadbury’s. A year later, he became a creative director at Corsellis Montford Interactive, a London interactive design firm, where his accounts included the British Army, Shell, KMPG and London Transport. In 1997, he founded SOUP Design, which provided design, strategy and branding services for consumer products and fashion accounts including London’s Conran Shop and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Concurrent with that venture, he served as head of film and creative director of The Gathering PLC, London, a branding agency whose clients included Kraft Foods, Bosch Household Appliances and Johnson and Johnson.MSD.
Greg Kiefer
Kiefer has directed commercials for such clients as 3Com, Yoplait and Blue Cross/Blue Sheild. His specialty is in capturing high impact visuals and telling stories that are grounded in real life situations and the humanity of their characters. His most recent credits include campaigns for Verizon (Bozell, New York) and Yoplait (Saatchi & Saatchi, NY).
A native of Salt Lake City, Utah, Kiefer studied marketing and film at Utah State University and the University of Utah, respectively. He began his career in 1990 with Salt Lake City NBC affiliate KUTV, where he wrote, produced and directed station promos. He went on to form his own production company, in 1993, Cosmic Pictures, Salt Lake City, through which he launched his career in commercials and went onto gain national recognition for his craftsmanship and storytelling ability.
Jeff France
France has been directing smart, funny and thoroughly engaging commercials for more than a decade. His most recent efforts include spots for Walgreen’s (Tatham Euro RSCG, Chicago) and The Coalition on Donation (Arnold Communications, Boston) as well as a series of campaigns for Mervyn’s (Colby & Partners, Los Angeles).
France began his career as an art director with Lawler Ballard. He went onto become a creative director before leaving the agency in 1988 to launch his career as a director via Big City Films, New York. A year later, he began a ten year run with Harmony Pictures, Los Angeles.
Thomas Winter Cooke is located in Santa Monica.
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