New Talent: Simon Bonde

Photo, left to right: Simon Bonde and Michael Spooner

For director Simon Bonde, once you catch the film bug you ain't getting rid of it. Half of directing duo Spooner/Bonde (other half Michael Spooner), Bonde's love of creativity and filmmaking stems from creating weird and fantastical playtime stories out of the necessity of being an only child. After venturing into the TV biz with a spoof cop, mockumentary style ‘dramedy’ (before The Office was released) Spooner/Bonde set their sights on commercials and music videos, and are now repped by Cap Gun Collective. It’s paid off. Bonde (without Spooner on this project) was named on this year’s Saatchi & Saatchi New Directors’ Showcase for ‘Ghost of a Smile’, a hauntingly pretty music video for longtime pal and Danish musician Peder. LBB’s Addison Capper caught up with Bonde to find out why personal experiences made shooting the film that bit more meaningful, how games of Monopoly played alone helped his venture into filmmaking, and why kicking back and writing rap is the perfect switch off. 

LBB> Where did you grow up and what kind of kid were you?

SB> I was born and raised in Copenhagen, Denmark. I was an only child, and I actually think that's had a big impact on the kind of work I do today. With no siblings to play with, I was pretty much left with just my own imagination, so that muscle got flexed quite frequently. I can't begin to count how many times I've played Monopoly against my own alter egos. I would constantly come up with new characters to play against, and I would make elaborate score sheets and records of who had won most games. Pretty scary, now that I think of it. But anyway, having to invent entertainment from an early age probably laid the tracks for a career in the creative world, although I did take a couple of long detours on the way. 

LBB> Where did you learn your craft and what drew you to it? 

SB> I learned by doing. I never went to film school, or worked my way up the ladder from runner to assistant, etc. I was studying political science when Michael Spooner asked me to co-write a TV series that he was developing. He had this idea to do a spoof cop show - a scripted dramedy posing as a reality about an elite cop unit. This was before The Office - in the early days of the reality revolution - and no one had done a mockumentary series like this before, so it felt like we were breaking new ground. We ended up selling the show and writing/directing two seasons, and after that I finished my studies and we formed the Spooner/Bonde directing duo. 

LBB> Where did you meet Michael and why do you think you clicked well as a duo? 

SB> Michael and I had mutual friends in high school and we both loved rap music, so we hung out a lot in those crucial teenage years where you form bonds. I think the reason we were able to work as a duo for so many years is that we were friends before we were working partners. We already shared a common taste when we started out. 

LBB> How do you tackle each project as a pair?

SB> It's a pretty organic process. There's no division of labour. When we do projects together we're pretty much one director throughout the whole process.

LBB> What appealed to you about commercial filmmaking? 

SB> Very few jobs in this world allow people to pay attention to every little detail because life is usually just too busy. In commercials you spend weeks producing 30 seconds of content, so attention to detail is not only allowed - it's demanded. Sure, it can be frustrating when a client wants to debate the exact kind of yellow colour of a cushion in the far background - but it's really a great luxury to create a product where everything has been thoroughly thought through. 

LBB> Tell us about Ghost of a Smile. What’s the narrative and where did the idea come from?

SB> The basic idea came from Peder, the artist who also performs in the video. He had a lot of personal emotions tied up in the song and wanted to give those emotions a visual expression as well. He wanted to tell a story about a man. 

LBB> How did you get involved in the project? Did you know Peder prior to shooting it? 

SB> Peder had just finished his album and wanted to do a video where he would be boxing while a kid was watching. That was the basic idea, and it was clearly very personal to Peder. Not only did that idea capture some of the emotions he had tried to put in the song, it also corresponded with stuff that had been going on in his personal life. Going through a rough patch while trying to be a father to his son... I'm oversimplifying, but I don't want to get all Oprah up in this. 

Peder asked me to join him on this project. We hadn't worked together since we did radio comedy together back in the days, but since I was now a director it seemed like the obvious thing to do. I loved the song, and the fact that he wanted to expand his vision to also be a piece of visual art was really inspiring. 

LBB> What were the biggest challenges during production? And what fond memories did you take from it?

SB> The biggest challenge was the fighting choreography - it's Peder himself doing all the fighting and it's really not something anyone could just do. It took a lot of rehearsing with the fight choreographer. Had it been an artist or band that I didn't know personally I would never had dared letting them do their own fight choreography, but Peder was hellbent on this, and somehow we both knew that this meant so much to him - he just couldn't allow himself to fail. Overcoming that obstacle was probably also the biggest highlight. Working with Storm - who plays the kid - was another.  

LBB> How did it feel for it to be featured on the New Directors' Showcase? 

SB> It felt great. I went to the screening in Cannes and was really excited to see the video on a big screen. 

LBB> Which other projects that you've worked on have you particularly enjoyed and why? 

SB> Mike and I did a Danish TV show a couple of years back called ‘Man With the Golden Ears’. The show was an eight episode series about a record label executive in a full-blown midlife crisis. I'm really proud of that show, so even if the process was cruel, I look back at it with fond memories. I just finished a major campaign for Tuborg that I also really enjoyed shooting. 

LBB> What does the rest of the year hold for you? 

SB> Apart from the commercial shoots, I'm prepping a TV pilot that I'm really looking forward to shooting. I wrote the first draft last summer, and it finally looks like we have a green light. 

LBB> Outside of work what do you enjoy doing to keep your creative juices flowing? 

SB> Filmmaking is just about the most logistically demanding way to express oneself. Whenever I get fed up with the endless meetings and prepping of film production, I go to Peder's studio to hang out and write idiotic Danish rap songs. We have a group called Xtra Naan with a musician friend of ours, and I love the fact that whenever you've written a couple of rhymes you can just step in the vocal booth and kick them right away. It only takes a couple of hours to lay down the basics of a song, and you don't depend on a whole crew of people to make it happen. That being said, I don't like to cheat on filmmaking for too long. Once you're bitten by the film bug, it'll always be your first love. 

Little Black Book is proud media partner to the Saatchi & Saatchi New Directors' Showcase, which is set for global screenings. The next is in Moscow on Thursday 21st August.

For more coverage, screening dates and ticket details, please click here.