The Work That Made Me: Owen Trevor
Owen is best known for his amusing, sophisticated visual language and his ability to drive a narrative forward through comedy and craft. He has a particular passion and knack for casting and performance, which, coming from a line of actors, comes naturally to him.
Multiple award winning director Owen started his career shooting various short films and music videos, finessing his storytelling at an early age. His talent got noticed by the producers of Top Gear, where he went on to direct four seasons of the show. This led him to helm various commercial campaigns including clients like Range Rover and VW as well as pursuing own projects. His short film “Two Laps” toured the festival circuit to prominent reviews and receiving multiple awards. It is his eye for great performance and clever concepts that drives most of his work, using comedy as a device to drive the story forward
Versatile across all formats, Owen spent many years directing five seasons of BBC’s Top Gear and most recently directed Netflix family film, Go Karts.
The ad/music video from my childhood that stays with me…
The Cure were like a portal to another world for 12-13 year old me. They ultimately lead me to The Pixies, William S Burroughs, Borges, Dali, Jacques Tati, Kaurismaki and on and on through countless things since. But they were the first window into a world beyond the mainstream. This video and song is everything that is great about them and of course, it’s by the one and only Tim Pope…
The ad/music video/game/web platform that made me want to get into the industry…
'Miller Lite - Evil Beaver' by my stable-mates and sometimes rivals Traktor. Absurd brilliance from the get-go. I saw it at university and my path was set.
The creative work that I keep revisiting…
I could watch The Big Lebowski a thousand times and never get bored. But perhaps it would be Chopper by Andrew Dominik. The colour grade hasn’t aged well, but it’s a masterpiece. Equal parts hilarious, gruesome, hallucinatory and touching. Eric Bana is remarkable. Not just the best Aussie film of all time, but right up there with Coppola and Scorsese and The Wire as the best crime story of all time.
My first professional project…
A big mainstream music video that I won’t name, but for which I won an Australian MTV music video award. Not a bad start both pay and awards wise; but definitely not my finest hour as a Director…
The piece of work that made me so angry that I vowed to never make anything like *that*…
I’m gonna amend this question cause I don’t like slagging of anyone but myself. So the piece that made me vow to never make anything like *that* AGAIN, would be the music video I mentioned above…
The piece of work that still makes me jealous…
Pretty much anything by Jonathan Glazer. But for the sake of choosing one, let's go for one of his slightly less celebrated pieces.
Which clearly influenced my best short film:
The creative project that changed my career…
CCO and founding partner of The Monkeys agency in Australia, Scott Nowell asked me to do this project as a favour. They had no money and a mad idea that no one else thought would work. It was originally two scripts, one with the lady and one with the banana and they only wanted one. I convinced them to let me shoot it three different ways, the two separate films and a combined one that put it all together, that I was assured would never see the light of day…
It won a bunch of stuff and got me in front of Nils Leonard, Vicky Maguire and Jay Marlow at Grey London who I then made about a dozen commercials with over the next couple of years and I pretty much haven’t stopped since.
The work that I’m proudest of…
A budgetary, logistical and creative challenge from start to finish. Shot in one day with 25 cast in Harrow town hall believe it or not.
I was involved in this and it makes me cringe…
I was a Director for five seasons on BBC Top Gear. It was brilliant and played a big role in making me who I am. But at times the politics and personalities in the show made me cringe…
The recent project I was involved in that excited me the most…
I was very happy with how Rightmove turned out:
