Ben Nakamura Whitehouse Brings His Distinct Style of Comedy to the Canadian Market

With the end of 2024 proving not immune to the annual throes of holiday and business chaos, within the Canadian market, one notable director signing flew under the radar for many in the businesses. Specifically, UK-based director Ben Nakamura Whitehouse signed with Toronto-based Revolver Films for Canadian representation – a promising move which brings an exciting international talent into the local industry.

Already, Ben has found time to leave his mark. Having recently finished up his first shoot for the Canadian Real Estate Association alongside No Fixed Address, his drive to tell ambitious stories that turbocharge concepts in an “entertaining as hell” way is now on full display for all to see – the first of many to come, undoubtedly. And, having spent time as a cinematographer, photographer, and even a ghost writer, he’ll be looking to continue this streak in the months to come, fighting for cool, character-based concepts, and turning ideas that only exist on paper into effective and memorable advertising for all.

To learn a little more about what brought him to the market, his journey to becoming a director, and what the first shoot experience with Revolver was like, LBB’s Jordan Won Neufeldt sat down with Ben for a chat.

LBB> Ben, congratulations on signing with Revolver! How did this come about, and what made joining the team feel like the right decision for your career?

Ben> Thank you! I couldn’t be happier to be joining Luc Frappier and Richard Cureton (executive producers) at Revolver, especially since I learned they have their own castle and are famous for their parties. Fittingly, Richard and I met on a rooftop bar in Barcelona where we were both shooting, probably three or four years ago. He’s a Scot, and I’m an honorary Celt from Cornwall, UK. We hit it off and not long after, he had me pitching freelance on some cool spots for TurboTax and Hyundai. We got very close (but no cigar) on those.

Fast forward to the summer of 2024 – I’d just had a brilliant time shooting a US spot for Masterclass in Vancouver (my first trip to Canada) and thought, ‘this is an awesome country and a really cool ad market, I need to spend more time here’. With Revolver’s amazing roster and pedigree, and a good experience getting to know each other on those pitches, I called Richard and Luc… et voila, the start of what I hope will be a long and beautiful transatlantic relationship.

LBB> Specifically, as a London-based director, what inspired you to get into the Canadian market at this time? Is there anything about it you find particularly exciting at the moment?

Ben> I’m a big fan of North American comedy. There’s an edge and ambition to it that’s not in our European DNA and it’s something I’ve always looked to for inspiration. With Canadian comedy specifically, when I think about the likes of The Perlorian Brothers, Aircastle, Michael Clowater, and my all time favourite, Jeff Low, what I love is the country’s sense of humour really has one sweaty gym shoe in the bold irreverence, ambition and sketch comedy tradition from the US, and the other in the more ironic and underplayed sensibility of the Brits and Europeans.

That really aligns with my personal taste: grounded character comedy, strong casting, and great characters, set within an ambitious storytelling world. But just to get real for a moment, isn’t spending more time with Canadians a life goal that all people should have anyway?!

LBB> What have the early days of collaboration been like? How are you enjoying things thus far?

Ben> I’m not gonna lie, it’s been a pretty good start. I joined Revolver in late 2024, we pitched and won our very first job together for the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) through No Fixed Address, and by mid-January I found myself in sunny Cape Town shooting a really great campaign with a decent budget and a genuinely lovely and talented bunch of people. It turned out to be one of those jobs that was satisfying and enjoyable for so many reasons, from being able to repay Luc and Richard’s faith so quickly, to being given the chance to get to know each other on a really fun job in a primo destination, to feeling fully supported and trusted to do my thing from start to finish.

So, it’s been the perfect start, and a thoroughly enjoyable collaboration… But I take nothing for granted. A lot of jobs can be a grind and for every shoot on a beach in mid-summer, there’s three shooting in a nondescript studio in central Europe with a chain-smoking local line producer in who can only offer me withering looks while saying, “No, that’s not possible…”.

LBB> Tell us more about the CREA shoot! On a technical level, what was the experience like?

Ben> In all honesty, it was one of the most enjoyable shoots I’ve ever done. I love my job and I feel so privileged to get to travel the world and work with good people like Luc and my producer, Peter Oad. Over the 10 days of prep and three days of shooting – which involved multiple locations, a lot of driving, working with Great Danes, building a full-sized houseboat, and an unpleasant bout of seafood poisoning – we had the chance to get to know each other pretty well. With the help of the wonderful people at Gatehouse Films, the guys put an amazing team together, had my back every step of the way, and despite the inevitable challenges, it was a really solid and positive production from start to finish.

The shoot itself was a bit of a jigsaw puzzle, but with a very cool-headed production team, it all came together. The one weak link, and I hate to throw anyone under the bus, was our lead Great Dane. He kept missing his marks, was easily distracted, overheated too easily, etc. I could go on.

LBB> Do you have any anecdotes from the experience?

Ben> One of the things I find most rewarding about production is that it can take you to the kinds of places that we would never go otherwise, like narco houses in Mexico, leper communities in the slums of Mumbai, or Neasden in North London. Well, this CREA project took us to a special FX workshop in an industrial part of Cape Town to have a look at the rig that would ‘rock’ our houseboat, where we experienced without doubt… the worst smell in the world.

Imagine a vast factory where they boil cow skins on an industrial scale. The nostril-burning, putrid, wretch-inducing smell of boiling dead flesh mixed with cow s@*t and god knows what chemicals. A stench that hung in the air, slowly baking in the midday African sun while wafting over this workshop. I sincerely wish I could un-smell that smell, but having survived that trauma, I think we’ll come out of it stronger in the long run.

LBB> With one under your belt, what other types of pieces will you be looking to pitch for within the Canadian market? Are there particular genres or subject matters that you find especially exciting?

Ben> What really gets my juices flowing is character comedy and world building – comedic stories where the humour is in the characters and their situations, rather than gags. In North America, you have this tradition of comedy directors and actors coming up through sketch shows and improv, which is just less of a thing in the UK. We’re much more character based, and what I’ve found is I love taking absurd ideas and flawed characters and playing them for real with pathos and emotion. Fully committing to the idea in an unblinking, deadpan way, whilst often building an ambitious story world to turbocharge the concept and make it entertaining as hell.

A great example of that kind of thing is David Shane’s recent spot for Uber Eats starring Javier Bardem. Did you see that? People don’t really understand the amount of craft needed to pull off something like that. You have to master so many different disciplines from structure, to screenwriting, to comedic timing, to casting and performances, to tone, production design, cinematography, VFX, music… and all in service to the client and the idea.

So, for me, it’s less about genres or particular subjects. It’s all about finding interesting ideas told through interesting characters and executing that with craft. And I’m hoping – because Canadians can be a little braver with their comedy (especially when it comes to tone and being a bit weird) – to see more of that kind of thing. Bolder ideas. Weirder characters. Edgier humour.

LBB> You’ve talked about your style a bit, but tell us more! What should future collaborators know about you?

Ben> Like a lot of creatives, I have an unconventional background. My parents were massive hippies and I grew up surrounded by pottery and men sitting around playing guitars and smoking weed. But maybe because my mother is Japanese and my father’s side are all engineers and scientists, I rejected all that and set off in search of a career in film. I started out studying to be a cinematographer, but as I’d look through the eyepiece, I’d get very irritated because I always felt they were doing it wrong…

I then lucked out on a job as a runner at Partizan, which turned out to be the best production company in the world at the time. After cutting my teeth assisting directors like Michel Gondry and Traktor, I left to be a freelance ghost writer and researcher (which I did for too long). I worked on something like 400-500 pitches for the likes of Jonathan Glazer and Ivan Zacharias before breaking into directing myself.

This apprenticeship of sorts, where I witnessed first-hand that the very best directors were amazing creatives, technicians, communicators and collaborators, massively informed how I see this business. And it is a business – we’re not making art. Directing is all about working with good, talented people and empowering them to do their best work. On the agency and client side, it’s all about collaborating and solving problems, being a creative and reliable partner, and always having the strength of conviction in your own ideas and tastes. Earlier in my career, I would second guess or try to give people what I thought they wanted, and it always led to mediocrity. So, I always have to believe I’m the best director for the job, or I just won’t pitch it. I will also always rewrite the script in the way I think works best for the idea and the campaign, even if that means risking losing the job. And that’s not ego or hubris, that’s just a necessity I’ve learned the hard way.

LBB> Building on this, what pieces from your portfolio do you think best represent this? What makes them significant to you?

Ben> The work I’m most proud of and I feel best represents me are my Irn-Bru and Weetabix spots, but for different reasons.

Irn-Bru is just a joyful mashup of all the things I love about making commercials, and felt like the first job where I had a really solid process and knew what I was doing. I really did my homework on the Western genre and comedic influences, whilst at the same time, thinking about how to bring this into the modern world, avoid it just being a pastiche, and give it a tone and aesthetic that the brand could own.

For Weetabix, I’m proud of the way I stuck to my guns and navigated the process to create the best spot possible for everyone. The original boards had a different ending, and in the pitch, I proposed an alternative, better ending, which the client rejected. So, I convinced the agency (BBH London) to let me secretly cast two more characters (the fishermen) who we brought to the shoot and convinced the client to let us shoot as an alternate ending, with an agreement to make the final decision in the edit suite. When we did that, my ending won, no competition, which for me was a really valuable exercise in, “if you really, wholeheartedly believe in something, be positive, be smart, and fight for it.”

LBB> You mentioned ghostwriting, but you’ve also got a background in both cinematography and photography. How do these experiences help you in your craft today?

Ben> I studied photography and cinematography at film school, which has definitely served me well, and probably explains why despite essentially being a comedy and performance director, I place a lot of importance on elevating the visuals.

As I mentioned before, I would be shooting things and just have this overwhelming feeling that I would do it differently… and often I would say so (which must have been annoying as hell to whoever’s film I was shooting). So, I made the switch in my final year of studies and came out of film school as a fully fledged, card-carrying, wannabe director.

My approach to making commercials is that even with comedy, it is an overwhelmingly visual medium. Don’t get me wrong, I love North American-style comedy with its locked-off cameras that prioritises performance, improv and finding the funny over cinematic aesthetics. But my instinct is to use every trick in the box – including the visuals – to push the idea and turn it into something as attention grabbing, entertaining and effective as possible.

As for ghostwriting, I think it’s the best apprenticeship anyone can have in the commercial industry. The writing and pitching stage is where you do the hard work of solving problems, improving and clarifying ideas, finding the funny and the tone, and committing to an approach, and then selling it. It’s the most important stage of the process, where you pull a board apart in your head and rebuild it in your vision. They’re not really about helping communication on set – treatments are the creative contract upon which jobs are awarded. They’re the blueprint from which all subsequent conversations flow.

I’ve always written (and have worked at the BBC as a TV links writer), and I’m currently 80% of my way through a masters in screenwriting. All of this, plus the experience of helping to write so many treatments for other directors, has given me an incredibly useful insight into the process – in particular, the importance of writing with clarity, personality and passion. I’m always about recognising the work that has brought the board to this stage, how important every campaign is to a client and agency, and, crucially, our value as filmmakers and experts in how to turn ideas on paper into effective and entertaining advertising.

LBB> Finally, overall, what’s the most exciting aspect of this move? What are you most looking forward to in the days to come?

Ben> Revolver is a top-tier company and shares my love of craft and ambitious filmmaking. I’m just excited to hopefully shoot lots of great work together, have a brilliant time doing it, and, perhaps maybe, just maybe, in these turbulent and changing times, play a small but important role in bringing Canada and the UK closer together.