Dream Teams: How Joe Beverley and Sam Hurlock Became That Jam

When Joe Beverley and Sam Hurlock first met, Joe was in a wheelchair. Owed to a “stunt” gone wrong (Joe had jumped off the 15-foot roof of their film school’s student union building) Sam’s first thoughts were: “This is clearly someone who can commit 100%.”

And commit 100% he did. Having stumbled into a music video shoot that Sam was directing, Joe immediately, and with zero prompts, jumped in as an extra for a food fight scene. “While other people were nervously throwing loaves of bread at each other, I was going full Bruce Lee with sausage nunchucks. Sam was impressed with the drama and humour I brought, and I was impressed he’d managed to make all this happen while seeming completely at ease with the chaos.” 

Truly, it was love at first scene. So, when Sam asked Joe if he wanted to AD on the next shoot, Joe immediately and happily agreed… despite not knowing what an AD was. 

That didn’t matter though. While Sam jokes that their friendship is purely due to the fact that he had a DSLR, the two really coalesced over a mutual sense that neither partner was quite like anyone else in the industry around them. 

“My first impression of Joe was, ’This guy is different from the rest’,” Sam says. “His lack of fear, high energy, and rapid pace of creativity really stood out compared to previous creative partnerships I’d had. I saw Joe as the blank-page guy, perhaps something that was missing in my own skill set. He was always brimming with ideas and it helped spark my own ideas, creating this back and forth which is still present today.”

Joe returns the compliment, adding that at university, despite being surrounded by a lot of ‘creatives’, none of them seemed to actually produce much creative work, unlike Sam, who was a doer. “He actually made things happen,” Joe continues. “One of our mottos to this day is ‘You’re not a filmmaker if you don’t make films!’, and within days of meeting each other, we were collaborating across several personal projects.”

All this, in conjunction with a shared desire to succeed, created a framework for success - something that is clearly reflected 10 years later. Now rocking the name ‘That Jam’, and working with Canadian film production company Feels Like Home, the award-winning pair are quite literally best friends that go to work together every day, hungry to create exciting work.

Nothing sums up this ethos more effectively than the duo’s very first project together: a music video for UK dance DJs, Wideboys. Given a “whopping” £350 budget, according to Joe, the key to making it work was found by roping in students for a bacchanal-style party scene in an abandoned pub in Farnham. And yes, they broke in to make it happen. 

“We wrote down a list of crazy scenarios that in hindsight, were incredibly cliché and practically dangerous,” he adds. “Among these were attaching a bag full of fireworks to a shopping trolley and shooting them from seven directions - all with the same cheap 50mm lens.”

For Sam, the best part of that project was certainly the illegal rave they hosted to end the video - something which, he notes, got pretty out of hand. “This project was basically us throwing every idea we could think of into a list and trying to shoot as much of it as possible in a very long day,” he says. “Nowadays we’re much more refined with our process, but that raw, original ideating session still kicks off any creative work we do.”

This was very much the case when recently experiencing their first collaboration with a Canadian agency - Cossette. Tasked with creating five 15-second spots for McDonald’s, the duo actually found themselves able to integrate the agency into the ideating, working closely with creatives Leilah Ambrose (group creative director), Michael Mehrasa (senior copywriter) and Will Cuthbert (senior art director), and producer, Sharon Langlotz, to hone in on what they unanimously wanted to achieve. 

“Working with another creative team was really helpful, as we were all pre-geared for collaboration,” Joe says. “They know their client so well, which meant they were able to guide us to the right solutions. Often on big projects, you have varying levels of involvement, but with this project, the care and attention seemed to be ingrained all the way to the top. Jason Hill (ECD), was a real breath of fresh air, and had a really great balance of creative involvement and brand management… Plus it’s always nice to meet a fellow UK northerner when you’re halfway around the world.”

Specifically, the pair found themselves loving the well-timed and well-structured nature of production. By amalgamating their process of heavy pre-visualisation into the workflow, the creative was solidified very early on, leaving Joe and Sam free to perfect ideas and prepare for the shoot. 

“We’re making films - it should be a blast, and it felt like everyone we worked with shared that philosophy,” Sam says. “From the crew to the clients, it was brilliant. I just loved how nice everyone was. It made us want to work as hard as possible!” 

That Jam is equally quick to shout out Feels Like Home’s role in the success of this project. Not only did they assemble what Sam calls “an A1 team,” but they ensured that the two felt looked after, listened to, and supported the whole way - all with zero complications. 

To this end, both Joe and Sam sing the praises of Marni Luftspring, the president and EP of the production company. “Marni just has my kind of energy,” Joe says. “I love being surrounded by people who love their jobs, and that's Marni in a nutshell. She’s created a company that has a zero a**holes policy, and they really mean it. Everyone they work with rises to that good energy. It was without a doubt one of the most fun shoots we‘ve ever had.”

Building on this, Sam states that meeting Marni was one of those “ah-ha” moments in life. “Her passion and energy for filmmaking blew us away, and we immediately knew we were in the right place to build something. Feels Like Home really has a family vibe, and as a director, it’s sometimes hard to find a place where you truly feel like the people around are there to nurture your craft, and also do it as a team.” 

And, to make the obvious pun, indeed, the efforts of Marni and her team did make Toronto feel like home for the director pair. “Put it this way, we’d been in Toronto for maybe three days before we were looking at houses trying to figure out if we could stay forever,” Joe adds. “I’m not sure if all production companies are the same as Feels Like Home, but we immediately felt… at home. “

However, the success of the project does not mean the experience was not without difficulty. Specifically, the duo found themselves facing the familiar challenge of making big ideas fit into small time frames, as using slow motion to capture personable and recognisable moments meant that the pair was effectively forced to tell each story with about three seconds of total action, per spot. 

The solution? The pair’s aforementioned love of heavy pre-vis. Granting Joe and Sam the ability to quickly see what was important to the film, the duo were allowed room for mistakes - testing and weeding out ideas that might not make it past the storyboard phase and, more importantly, giving them an easy way to present new ideas to the wider creative team. 

“We basically make the film on our phones with Joe playing roles - all the way down to a dog - and then we fine-cut the film to music and sound,“ he continues. Our style relies heavily on camera movement, transitions, and sometimes VFX, so there is very little room for error in timing. As such, we’ve found [pre-vis] to be a great way to finalise ideas collaboratively with creatives and clients, ensuring we leave no surprises in the edit.” 

The ability to achieve such solutions is certainly bolstered by the pair’s partnership. While an individual director can certainly undertake the same process that Joe and Sam employ, the ability to consistently stress test ideas and use each other as bouncing boards really lends That Jam a creative edge. 

But, that’s not the only advantage. In a job that can often be considered lonely, Joe says that the greatest benefit of their partnership is just the sense of being in a team. “[As a director], it’s great when things are going well, but when you’re going through a dry month, it can feel really isolating. We raise each other up, regroup, and readjust, because we’re able to talk things through in a really non-judgemental environment.”

Continuing this train of thought, Sam notes that working in a team can really take the edge off a job that can sometimes become quite intense. Even just having someone to moan at, he says, can be cathartic, and a further upside is the fact that they’re able to take on more projects across smaller time frames due to their ability to split across tasks. “We’ve even managed to give each other holiday time! If one of us is away the train still keeps moving and I’m really proud of the space we’ve created for each other.”

One further benefit can also be found in the fact that, by reading each other’s reactions, they’re able to gauge the quality of an idea almost instantly. If Joe or Sam’s face lights up in response to a pitch, the other will instantly know they’ve got something good, and that maybe it’s time to pursue it a little bit further. 

Such a reaction was evident when the two did a spot for the NHS, which Sam calls his most proud commercial collaboration. “It’s a cause very close to my heart, and it was such a wonderful idea that had both a good purpose and also (hopefully) made people think ‘How did they do that?’,” he says. 

On the flipside, Joe’s proudest pieces consist of the pair’s narrative work. Despite having worked on some very complex VFX projects, for him, it’s the simple stuff he’s most proud of. “It seems to come more naturally, and I feel like everything we’ve learned over the years plays into it,” he says. “We love working closely with actors, building characters from scratch, and using comedy to talk about more serious subjects. We’ve just finished a comedy crime pilot called ‘Unprecedented Crimes’. It's being released very soon, and I'm excited for people to see it. I think it's the most That Jam thing we’ve ever made. It has comedy, film tropes, vintage guns, and exploding heads!” 

This latter point, specifically, is something that Joe further highlights. As it turns out, the pair often try to draw as much inspiration from the silver screen as possible, as their style relies heavily on tropes and recognisable methodologies that they can play with for comedic effect - all of which originate from classic cinema. “I love visually interesting commercials, but I want to make sure we are expert storytellers at our core,” he continues. “I’m inspired by directors like Edgar Wright and the Coen Brothers, whose strengths lie within the clever use of the medium itself. We want our love of film to be evident in every frame.” 

Meanwhile, Sam attributes much of his artistic inspiration to fellow director duo thirtytwo, specifically highlighting ‘Shut Up and Play the Hits’, as well as, naturally, their commercial style. “I love how they can incorporate heart and humour in a way that feels totally natural and effortless, whilst still leaving their work open to some impressive VFX worlds,” he says. “They're also the loveliest guys and were so kind to give us some advice when starting out in the commercial world. Big up thirtytwo!” 

There’s one other source That Jam draws influence from: the Daniels. An inspiration to both the pair and the industry as a whole, Joe and Sam believe their work to be incredible, topped only by the fun they manage to have. And, it’s for this reason that they’re always striving to replicate the sense of wonder and experimentation the Daniels approach their craft with - hoping to one day be seen in the same light. 

In seeking this, there’s also much room for introspection. Namely, the questions of how can Joe and Sam’s partnership be best perceived by others, and how can it best be understood? To this end, Joe’s answer is simple. Where some duos are understood because each partner offers a very unique quality, That Jam works because of their similarities. Sure, Sam is more the “doer” while Joe is the “practical creative”, but their workflows are similar, their ideologies are similar, and most importantly, good ideas always win out in the end. 

“It’s something we’ve leaned into over the last few years, and it works really well for us,” Sam adds. “Joe is an amazing original thinker and he strives for originality, often saying ‘How can we do this better?’, which I love. It’s rare to find someone that shares the same passion as you, and you get to make a career from it. But, even from the day we teamed up, there was never a doubt that this was what we were going to do with our lives.”