senckađ
Group745
Group745
Group745
Group745
Group745
Group745
The Directors in association withLBB Pro User
Group745

The Directors: Rory Hanrahan

10/03/2023
Production Company
London, UK
102
Share
Common People Films director on mulling a script over, working with Guinness and why a good ad takes a great team to make

After studying graphics at St. Martins and film at NYU, Rory embraced agency life as an art director in NY. His great love for sideways rain and wood fires brought Rory back to Ireland, where he now works as a writer & commercial director. With a strong agency background Rory loves collaborating with creative teams to bring funny and human scripts to life. With a focus on engaging performance and visual storytelling Rory has a knack for bringing brand worlds to life with warmth and humour. 

Rory is also represented by London literary agents Curtis Brown and is currently developing a couple of scripts. One of them is a six part time-travel TV series called Wife Of The Future about a teenager who is visited by his time-travelling middle aged woman from the future. It’s weird and it's funny.


Name: Rory Hanrahan

Repped by/in: Common People Films


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

Rory> I get excited when I can see a key moment in my mind’s eye - a situation or a conflict that feels interesting. A really good script feels alive straight away - it has an energy that feels challenges me and feels exciting to work with. The dialogue is less important than the situation, and that’s something that develops through casting, shooting and editing. I also get excited about locations - sometimes the challenge of shooting in an airport or outside a chipper just really brings a script alive. I suppose ultimately I am always looking to getting excited about taking something human and bringing it to life in an interesting visual environment.


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

Rory> I like to read a script and then go for a long walk and just mull it over. I sense pretty quickly if it’s right for me - if there’s something at the heart of a script that I am inspired by. Writing the treatment starts out with one idea that I’m bringing to the script - an insight about a moment in the script - or an idea on how to sharpen the script with a gag or a moment. I worked for years as an art director, so I know how much work went into bringing the script up the ladder to get sent out to directors - so I’m always trying to understand the core idea at the heart of the script - and then ask myself if I have something exciting to add to it.


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?

Rory> When I moved back to Ireland from the States one thing that really inspired me was getting scripts for brands I had grown up with. Working with Guinness was one of those ones where I knew so much about the brand. I used to cycle past the brewery when I was a teenager and that smell just takes me back. But of course its not always like that, but to be honest, I love a nice coffee and a good brand guidelines book! It’s interesting to understand how a brand sees itself - because ultimately the brand is a character in the World you create. Again - having an agency background helps me to geek out on brand stuff - and really pay attention to the tag line.


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

Rory> A good ad takes a great team to make. Obviously cast is key, and a great DP always brings something vital - but the truth is it’s impossible to make good work without a good director-agency/client relationship. That’s the axis of creativity in pre-pro and on set. It takes trust & judgement for agency and clients to go along with a director’s new point of view on a project. The creative team have already done so much work to send a job out to bid - and then a director comes along and wants to change it! That takes vision and trust. In my experience great client/agency teams know their brand inside-out, so for me as a director I have to accept that if something feels like it doesn’t fit in the brand world, they are probably right.


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?

Rory> I enjoy working with comedy - because the best jokes are really coded truths. In the last couple of years I have been writing a lot - and left-field humour really gets me excited - not because it’s odd - but because it’s looking at something familiar through a new lens. I’m working on a time travel series about a teenager who meets his wife from the future - and for me it’s a wonderful way to explore how we change so much as we grow - and what we want when we are 18 is a million miles from what we want when we’re 40.


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

Rory> I think all directors get pigeon-holed - and I constantly want to fight being put in a box. For a couple of years I did a telecom campaign with real people - and I loved the challenge of getting a performance from non-actors - but then you get put in a box for that sort of work, and then you try to bust out of it by bringing something new to the table - and that constant dance never ends. Ultimately, it’s important to be trying something new - to be pushing your craft somewhere new - that’s what makes the work exciting - so I suppose it’s up to directors to keep climbing out of the boxes you are constantly put in.


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

Rory> Once I cast an actor for a car ad and he couldn’t drive (he lied at the audition!). I only found out on day one of a two day shoot… We needed shots of him driving so I reworked the storyboard on set and we used the handbrake on a hill a lot! I reworked a couple of scenes to be in a stationary car, and we had a grumpy grip pushing the car in another scene. For the shot where he was stuck in traffic with everyone beeping at him we just left that one to the end of the second day and his poor driving skills did the rest! Since then I’ve learned never to take an ambitious actor at their word.


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

Rory> I think if you have a problem with a script - you have to fix it in the treatment - and you have to replace it with an undeniably better solution. Of course once production starts rolling you always run into differences of opinion - casting, locations etc. - but I just make my case emphatically and explain how my idea is rooted in my understanding of the brand world. Once on set there are always lots of notes on performance - and I’ve just learned to get the performance I want before we take notes. In the edit everyone forgets the strongly-held views they had on set if the ad is working. Of course sometimes I’m wrong! So it’s important for me to remember that it’s not always helpful to be the big ego director. I’m the filter of all the ideas on set - they don’t have to be my ideas.


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?

Rory> I’ve never had an apprentice per se - but I really embrace working with young hungry talent - cast, dp, editors etc. I’ve learned to listen to lots of voices - because great ideas can come from anyone on set, and ambitious PAs become the next young directors. I have a good bit of dialogue with a diverse range of people who reach out to me on social media, and I also teach a storytelling class at an Art School. It reminds me how lucky I am to have the job I have, and tapping into the energy of others inspires me and them.


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? 

Rory> Remote directing was so problematic! Shouting enthusiastically through an iPad at an actor is just so awkward! And then when we got back out with a crew we were all wearing masks while trying to work with people we had only met on zoom… It all felt so limiting, but there was a silver lining for me. It made me realise how much I as a director rely on soft skills - being in a room with people, bringing everyone along on the journey together, creating an atmosphere for creativity. 

It reminded me that so much of directing isn’t what you say - but how you conduct yourself, how you treat people, how you express ideas non verbally. When I got to go to set afterwards it made me so conscious of these things - so now I’m really embracing those social skills that bind a crew and cast together - and I’m allowing myself to enjoy the shooting days - it’s still stressful, but at least I’m not at home shouting at an iPad while the dog looks at me like I’ve lost my mind.


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)? 

Rory> Shooting content for portrait and landscape formats at exactly the same time can be frustrating - but there are ways to do it. For the GoMo campaign I shot in Portugal late last year I shot wide shots for the TVC while also framing for portrait phone content. In a way it’s easier than the old problem from 10-15 years ago of shooting 16:9 while also shooting 4:3. That felt really limiting - trying to make the same thing two slightly different ways. It’s sort of easier to shoot two radically different formats at the same time - because you also have freedom to crop and resize. You just have to be thoughtful in pre production and story boarding. And then on set you get a producer whispering in your ear that this wide shot is also for a super wide banner and also for a phone and you just have to take a deep breath!


LBB> What’s your relationship with new technology and, if at all, how do you incorporate future-facing tech into your work?

Rory> I’ve been playing around with Midjourney and creating lo-fi little films - fake histories of societies and places from the future, and it’s so much fun. I’ve used Chat GPT to write drafts of ideas and I use Speechify voices to narrate. AI is a storytelling tool just like a camera or any other piece of software - and as with anything it’s about the limits you set on the equipment. It’s all moving so fast - but I see it like the way drone technology came into production - for a few years you couldn’t make an ad without a sweeping drone shot - now they are just another tool on the camera truck.

Credits
More News from Common People
Hires, Wins & Business
Melody Sylvester Joins Common People Films
19/03/2024
472
0
ALL THEIR NEWS
Work from Common People
Follow Your Spark
BAFTA
31/10/2023
16
0
Alpine
Xbox
25/09/2023
8
0
iQuit
Liverpool FC x Standard Chartered
08/06/2023
10
0
ALL THEIR WORK