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The Directors in association withLBB Pro User
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The Directors: Emily Elizabeth Thomas

31/03/2023
Production Company
Los Angeles, USA
332
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ArtClass director on imaginative scripts, approaching a pitch like fine art and why her style is ‘Whimsical Americana with a Side of Punk Rock’

Emily Elizabeth Thomas is an award-winning writer/director based between Los Angeles and her hometown of Austin, Texas. She is a classically trained artist and holds a BA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and an MA from New York University. Emily is a genre filmmaker that explores ideas of womanhood, trauma and resiliency through a unique patina made of both girl and grit. Her work confronts traditional ideas of femininity with a punk flair, and seeks to inspire women and girls to believe in their magic.

Commercially, Emily has directed campaigns for clients such as ESPN, Disney, Southwest Airlines, and Dell. Her branded film ‘The Gathering’ with agency TBWA\Chiat\Day takes on sexual assault in Hollywood, and features #MeToo movement activist Ashley Judd. Her branded horror film ‘Midnight Zone’ for luxury eyewear house VADA went viral on Instagram, garnering over 300k views on its premiere day. In 2023, her commercial project ‘We Are Sexy’, a manifesto on the spectrum of female sexuality, screened in Free The Work Creator’s Showcase. 

Emily is a proud member of the Director’s Guild of America. You can often find her over-caffeinated.


Name: Emily Elizabeth Thomas

Location: Los Angeles & Austin

Repped by/in: ArtClass in North America

Awards:

Ad Age Pick of the Day, The Gathering, 2019

Shots Best of the Month, The Gathering, 2019

Best Indie Short, Independent Short Awards, Untitled Marfa Project, 2020

One Show, Best Branded Entertainment (Shortlist), The Gathering,  2020

ADC Awards, TV/Film/Video Craft in Writing (Shortlist), The Gathering, 2020

‘We Are Moving Stories’ Most Powerful Films on Gun Violence, Lola: Girl Got a Gun, 2020

Shoot Online’s New Directors Showcase, 2021

Quarter Finalist, Santa Barbara International Feature Screenplay Awards, Bye Bye Daisy, 2022


LBB> What elements of a script sets one apart from the other and what sort of scripts get you excited to shoot them?

Emily> I thrive with scripts that are imaginative, whimsical, and that let me bring a point of view and vision that consumers have not seen before. I get excited when I see scripts and boards that take risks, that are a bit left-of-centre, and that give me some latitude to be playful and weird, while still maintaining the brand’s core and delivering the messaging.

I’m also very drawn to scripts that have a poignant mise en scene, where there’s opportunity for the production design and wardrobe styling to be vibrant and painterly. The inside of my mind is kind of like an electric fairy garden, so I get truly excited when I feel like a script ignites those parts of my mind that love texture, shimmer and electric colours. 


LBB> How do you approach creating a treatment for a spot?

Emily> I approach my pitches like fine art; each crafted to be a creative experience for the agency and client, that distinctly speak to my visual style from start to finish: painterly, cinematic, punk. 

Upon seeing the script, I have an initial wave of ideas and visions for colour palette, tone, production design, wardrobe and camera movement, and I’m eager to get it on paper and out of my head. I do a 'mind dump' of my gut instinct ideas before the initial call, so I’m actually coming in with some unique ideas to test out. Then I dig in with the creatives, ask them questions about the kind of story they want to tell their audience, their initial thoughts on tone and casting, and if they are open to me taking a pass at the script. I add real cinematic value to the commercial space with my background and ongoing work as a narrative writer/director and I bring that into my pitches. Writing is a deep passion of mine as much as directing is, so I’m just stoked when creatives are down for me to bring that into the conversation.


LBB> If the script is for a brand that you're not familiar with/ don’t have a big affinity with or a market you're new to, how important is it for you to do research and understand that strategic and contextual side of the ad? If it’s important to you, how do you do it?

Emily> The most important brand research to me is figuring out the product’s audience. 

What types of people engage with this product? Who is the primary consumer? How do I include them in the creative? This allows me to focus on people, actors, and storytelling to help me sell. I just did a really fun Ad for Alienware, and knowing my audience was a huge part of how I won the job. I rewrote the scripts to include hyper specific and playful, whimsical details which built character and supported the story the brand wanted to sell. My understanding of the product’s audience made the spot more dynamic.


LBB> For you, what is the most important working relationship for a director to have with another person in making an ad? And why?

Emily> For me, it’s my production designer and wardrobe stylist. Baz Luhrmann in the 90s and early 2000s is life. The world building on set is huge for me!

I’m a very tactile director. Props, wardrobe, set design, all just lights my mind on fire. Even off-set, in the real world, I notice little things in a room like wallpaper, tile, the textures of the woman’s coat next to me, the flowers on the table, the cracks in the vase, strange objects, disco balls. I have all these crazy books that I dig through for inspiration that are like 90’s tiki bar glasses, weird objects from the 80s, traveling circus burlesque dancers, old movie posters from Westerns, the entire library of Vivienne Westwood runway shows. All these poignant, niche visual worlds ignite ideas for me.

I come in with a strong vision for production design and wardrobe every time, down to silhouettes, patterns and shapes, and how lighting plays off those elements. I just live for it.


LBB> What type of work are you most passionate about - is there a particular genre or subject matter or style you are most drawn to?

Emily> I would call my commercial style ‘Whimsical Americana with a Side of Punk Rock’. I am most interested in creating visual worlds that are inventive, dramatic, and a little bit camp. Anything that is hyperreal, or a slightly exaggerated version of reality. And anything that uplifts women and girls, or offers them a truthful vision of their experience that they don’t often see on screen. 


LBB> What misconception about you or your work do you most often encounter and why is it wrong?

Emily> I think what I do and what I’m about is very clear in my body of work, which I’m super proud of.

I do think there are misconceptions in the industry at large about young directors. Maybe that we’re too new on the block to handle complex creative, or that our opportunity to be here is so fresh that our skill sets might still be forming. I am always learning, and actively looking for opportunities to grow my career and my reel to new heights. But I built my business, and my reel, from the ground up, and like anything worth building, it’s a tough road! I might not have every important market represented in my reel yet, but man can I hustle and squeeze every bit of magic out of that budget. I think that’s a huge asset to bring into any creative endeavour. 

It’s all starting to change, though! Fresh perspectives, young directors, dynamic production companies like ArtClass, are starting to be embraced rather than made to sit in the queue. It’s an exciting time to be working!!


LBB> What’s the craziest problem you’ve come across in the course of a production – and how did you solve it?

Emily> Production is truly the Wild Wild West. Something is always crazy! But I’ve definitely got some stories. 

I directed a beautiful project with TBWA\Chiat\Day that became the banner film for the Brooklyn Film Festival, and it involved all these incredible characters from different genres coming together in a diner to tell their own #MeToo stories. There was a 1940’s spy, a nun, and an Elf Queen. In the script our spy speaks German, and we cast this rockstar actress that was willing to learn the basics of German in like a week. She would sit there in between takes and just study, and I would tweak the coverage and shot order around when she felt like she was ready to deliver a line in German. It was honestly really fun, but definitely challenging.

One time I traversed a treacherous four-wheel-drive required mountain range in the Texas desert to get to a location because of road closures. With an Alexa Mini and Arri Master Primes in tow. That was pretty fun. 


LBB> How do you strike the balance between being open/collaborative with the agency and brand client while also protecting the idea?

Emily> Creating trust with the agency and/or client is super important to the success of any spot. I do that by being concise and communicative about my ideas. I have ideas coming to me from all over – from books, movies, flower fields, dreams, vintage stores, European architecture, interior design, painting, sculpture, music – it really runs the gamut! But it is totally my responsibility to translate those ideas to the creatives so that it feels grounded and doable. For how dreamy and extravagant my ideas are, I make certain that the creatives are clear on how we are going to do it on time and on budget, so they can get as excited as I am while still feeling confident that we’re hitting all the brand/client needs.

It’s important for me to bring to the table both cinematic vision, and concise leadership. That makes the collaborative process successful for everyone, and it eases the minds of the creatives so that they are excited to let me do my thing, with their input and expertise on the brand. 

 

LBB> What are your thoughts on opening up the production world to a more diverse pool of talent? Are you open to mentoring and apprenticeships on set?

Emily> We have to. I become concerned when a cycle of advertising and film doesn’t look like the world we live in. The responsibility is on all of us to carry on this craft and make jobs accessible to all who want to do the work. 

I am always happy to mentor and develop apprenticeships on set. It’s a known fact that directing is really difficult to learn by study. You have to walk through every step of what it means to direct something from start to finish to grasp the level of decision making prowess, collaboration, entrepreneurship, stamina and gall that it takes to do this. It’s definitely important to me to be part of helping the next generation of filmmakers find their footing in the industry.


LBB> How do you feel the pandemic is going to influence the way you work into the longer term? Have you picked up new habits that you feel will stick around for a long time? 

Emily> The pandemic completely changed the landscape of our industry. I think it built our community in a lot of ways. We were all levelled in one way or another. A lot of talented people left the industry, but those of us that had the privilege to keep working I think feel a new responsibility to be part of how we recover in the coming years. There’s something special about that. 

Personally, the pandemic reminded me that sometimes I need to go back to how I started. In 2020, I made a 16mm short film inspired by Patti Smith’s iconic poem Cowboy Truths with my friends. I had just come off a big job with Disney, on set, and I landed back in Texas and ran around the countryside making an experimental Western. It was so fun, and it revitalised my passion for filmmaking at a time when I really needed it.


LBB> Your work is now presented in so many different formats - to what extent do you keep each in mind while you're working (and, equally, to what degree is it possible to do so)? 

Emily> I spend a lot of time watching interviews with my favourite directors for guidance and inspiration. There’s this fantastic interview with Guillermo Del Toro that blew my mind, and I think about it on every single job. 

The interviewer asks him about whether or not he considers his audience when he works, and he said that in fact, he is constantly considering his audience. So much so that he cuts out little shapes of people and puts them across the bottom of his director’s monitor to resemble a theatre, so that he’s always reminded of his final format. I found that so inspiring, and it influenced me to think more consciously about how audiences will view my work, across all formats and platforms. It changes from project to project, but it may mean making sure that I am rolling separate takes for social assets so that I’m satisfied with the framing, or being diligent about timing out my beats so I am telling a cohesive brand story in the :60, :30 and :15. In my mind, all formats deserve as much consideration as a movie being projected in a cinema. I’m a storyteller through and through, my :30s should be just as dynamic as my features.


LBB> What’s your relationship with new technology and, if at all, how do you incorporate future-facing tech into your work (e.g. virtual production, interactive storytelling, AI/data-driven visuals etc)?

Emily> I worked through the pandemic so I have definitely become an expert at virtual directing. It was an interesting challenge that I came to enjoy.

I learned on film, and have a good amount of celluloid in my reel. The classic forms of filmmaking will always be close to my heart, but embracing new technology is an inevitability that we should all be excited for. I’m stoked for opportunities that allow me to engage in that space. I’m super interested in interactive storytelling. It’s on my wish list to do a 'choose your own adventure' long form Ad. Hit me up I got ideas!


LBB> Which pieces of work do you feel really show off what you do best – and why? 

Emily> We Are Sexy – for its boldness in expression of female sexuality. 

Alienware – for its detail-oriented branded whimsy.

The Gathering for TBWA\Chiat\Day – for its storytelling prowess, and stunning costumes.

Midnight Zone for VADA Eyewear – for its punk rock, Berlin rave, weirdo vibes. 

Credits
Work from ArtClass
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11/03/2024
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