Beastie Boys, Noam Murro and Nando’s: The Work That Made Dean Blumberg
Dean Blumberg is one of South Africa's most celebrated directors whose meteoric rise began before even graduating film school – his three award-winning shorts earned him official Cannes selection and global industry recognition.
Within his first commercial year, he won the prestigious Shots Young Director's Award at Cannes Lions and became one of Creative Circle's most awarded directors in history, creating viral sensations like Nando's international breakthrough ‘Last Dictator Standing’ and South Africa Tourism's ‘Reconsider,’ one of the world's most viewed tourism commercials.
His exceptional storytelling and performance direction has attracted A-list talent including Sir Ben Kingsley and William Shatner while earning him awards from Cannes Lions, Clios, One Show, and the Loeries Grand Prix, with his work consistently appearing in the Gunn Report's 100 Most Awarded Commercials list.
Having recently co-founded the innovative Massif Films and completed his debut feature ‘STAYCATION’ set for release this year, Dean continues to shoot globally for brands like Coca-Cola, BMW, and Ford from his Johannesburg base, bringing his distinctly African perspective to international stories that captivate global audiences.
He sat down with LBB to reminisce about visits to the cinema at a young age, his first professional projects and his work with Capital Legacy…
LBB> The ad/music video from my childhood that stays with me…
Dean> As a child of the ‘80s, advertising was very cheesy in the most potent way. Lots of jingles still stick in my head, dramatic performances and over-the-top visuals, low angle Dutch tilts and extreme grades.
They all play like a collage of images from my childhood but we were an incredibly film focused family with projectors, my father owned a video store and most of my introduction to visual media was in classic film.
But the first short form content like an ad or a music video that caught my eye was ‘Intergalactic’ by Beastie Boys – it was a cool track, it was so inventive and wild and fun and expressive and the total antithesis in a way of what I grew up on. It still sticks with me and I can hear the track and see the pictures very clearly if I close my eyes.
LBB> The ad/music video/game/web platform that made me want to get into the industry…
Dean> I was always drawn to film and I began in the industry very early on working in film on crews to be close to the industry and advertising was never really something on my horizon until I went to the cinema for what was then a half-price Tuesday where you could watch movies all day for half price and instead of a film I watched the Cannes Reel that would be played at the independent cinema after the Lions awards.
I can't remember exactly what year it was but it was the first time I saw all this incredible work from around the world that we never saw on our television and some of them felt like movies and I became incredibly interested in the whole advertising genre.
LBB> The creative work that I keep revisiting…
Dean> That's hard to say, I'm an extreme consumer of all those sorts of things.
Music is always playing in my house, there's not a day that goes by that I don't consume a piece of content be it an episode of a series, pieces of a film, my photography books that are stacked next to my bed but I still think the place I dip creatively the most into is in classic film from the ‘70s and early ‘80s, and maybe Gary Larson comics.
LBB> My first professional project…
Dean> My first professional project was a great opportunity given to me by my production company when the director of a project had to step away for scheduling reasons and they needed a director to step in very quickly.
The job was a parody of a previous commercial done the year before for a radio station called 5FM and the project we were parodying had been made for the radio station and depicted women on a ship in a very raunchy and sexy way to the song ‘The Good Ship Lollipop.’
Our version was in response to some of the criticisms about the sexualisation of women and we made a men's version with regular guys all trying to behave in a sexy manner as a sort of parody with these regular guys such as a mechanic rubbing grease over himself and firemen showering themselves with water from a hose.
And it really went well and it got me my first opportunity to pitch on a job a couple of months later which launched my career.
LBB> The piece of work that made me so angry that I vowed to never make anything like that…
Dean> To this day, the work that disappoints me most came from my very first year of directing. I took on an incredibly intensive VFX job – this was before VFX was really mainstream, so it was a steep learning curve.
Sadly, the day before delivery, the render farm crashed and we had no project to deliver. The final commercial was actually well-received, but I was deeply disappointed. More than that, I felt I'd let down my production company, the agency, and the client I'd built a strong relationship with.
While it was beyond my control, I swore I would never again underestimate what could go wrong. I became laser-focused on understanding every variable that goes into creating a piece. I didn't stop doing heavy VFX work, but I became incredibly proficient at it and learned exactly where the limitations lie within every aspect of the medium.
LBB> The piece of work that still makes me jealous…
Dean> I would say that I've moved on from that feeling. I’ve gotten far more focused on my projects and stay away from over consuming what is happening within the industry. But at one stage it was certainly anything Noam Murro made.
I absolutely love his work and it was less jealousy than it was awe, I felt he had such a voice and quirk and emotional gravity in his work. It had all the things I wanted to create in mine.
LBB> The creative project that changed my career…
Dean> There have actually been a few turning points over the years but the job that got me probably my first international recognition was a project for Nando's called ‘Dictator.’
The commercial which featured an African dictator whose friends were no longer on the planet (for various reasons) has to eat alone and the film shows his nostalgic memories of playing foolishly with these awful men. The project got incredible attention.
It was a viral hit when the idea of viral hits was in its infancy, it featured on the front page of the Huffington Post, it was reposted by celebrities, it just got so much attention and it got me my first calls from international markets and broke my career out of the South African market into the international one.
LBB> The work that I'm proudest of…
Dean> I go through waves of pride and self-criticism and I'm sure that I have been proud of work in the past but recently I made a film for a company called Capital Legacy that had all the ingredients of things I love in a piece.
It was visually rich and full of human truth, humorous and a little bit darkly funny, while still having a strong emotional component. And having always loved working with actors I got to work with a very large ensemble cast, the lead of this cast was in his ‘90s and had always dreamed of acting but for various circumstances had never gotten the chance.
And this was his chance, he not only did an incredible job and delivered an amazing performance, he inspired everyone to work so hard around him and we just had such an incredible time, it was one of the greatest privileges of my career and he loved the film when he saw it and it went on to be very very popular and awarded but sadly he passed a few months after filming so to give him that experience and to share it with him was not only incredible, the film that came out of it I'm incredibly proud of.
LBB> I was involved in this and it makes me cringe…
Dean> Gosh, I have a whack of those commercials in my career that give me a little bit of a feeling of cringe. But I've also always just loved making things.
I'm very much a person in love with the process, the creation and the interaction of all the dynamic people you're working with. It's not always about the end results for me because I think that can be misleading.
A target is important but I think a lot of how something speaks to people is how it's made. A mentor of mine once said you can feel on the screen how the crew felt. And I believe that to an extent, there is something magical about a piece of film created by people who want to be there and are excited to be there so I've never felt a large degree of cringe.
LBB> The recent project I was involved in that excited me the most…
Dean> This last year has been a big turning point for me, for whatever reason I got involved in longer form projects and that's excited me the most based on the fact that it reminded me of the storytelling culture I always wanted to be a part of.
So I embarked on a much larger series of films for a bank across the African continent telling the complex stories of how businesses genuinely impact people and what makes those businesses tick and how they're improving the lives of people on my continent which I think in the world today was a very energising experience and then my first feature film has been an incredible return to the essence of what I love which is telling stories, working with actors and creating cinema.
