News | SEYI PETER-THOMAS | AD AGE

Saatchi and Saatchi opened the 22nd installment of its popular New Directors’ Showcase at Cannes with a dazzling fleet of hovering machines that performed a synchronized techno-ballet, shooting streaks of light across the stage and into the audience as they moved to an uplifting melody, illustrating this year’s theme, “Meet Your Creator.”

Saatchi senior creatives Jonathan Santana and Xander Smith, who were appointed creative directors of the showcase last year, masterminded the futuristic intro, this time teaming with tech-art collective Marshmallow Laser Feast and University of Pennsylvania grads Alex Kushleyev and Daniel Mellinger, founders of KMel Robotics and brains behind the agile quadrotors. Saatchi also enlisted electronic artist Oneohtrix Point Never, AKA Daniel Lopatin to help out with the show’s soundtrack. The highly coordinated dancing machines were a mesmerizing drumrolll to this year’s showcase, which showcased a collection of directors with very distinct points of view and a range of skillsets.

On the funny front, Graydon Shepard’s popular “Shit Girls Say” film made the cut, along with a hilarious trailer spoofing incomprehensible British accents from Skunk’s Rhys Thomas and a dog pal tale from Uber Content’s Daniel Strange. Another comedic show-stopper was a promo for MTV’s “The Hard Times of R.J. Berger,” from Station Film’s Seyi Peter-Thomas. It depicted, in hilarious slow-motion, the chain of events illustrating how the show’s main character goes from a nobody, to the most talked about kid on campus after a prank exposes his unusually large member to his schoolmates.

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