Dream Teams: KRONCK on Mixing Emotions, Love and Creativity

KRONCK, Bullion Production’s directing power couple consisting of Jessica Benzing and Maximilian Gerlach have known each other since their early 20s, working together right from the start. 

At the time, Max lived together with one of his best friends, who was a DJ and music producer – Jessi came to their flat to record vocals for his production. “She had dirty feet and drank lots of liquor from our Hello Kitty water dispenser. Which I found very sexy,” tells us Max.

He also immediately got to know Jessi’s impeccable sense of humour. The dirty feet, however, dropped out of the picture: “It turned out she had just been playing football in the park just before coming.”

Jessi’s first impression is a tad different: “I thought he was an ignorant, young prick with an arguable hair choice – he was a student hair model at the time and platinum blond was a bold move.” Obviously, though, this perception was quickly subverted since the two became best friends and not long after, a couple.

Together, the two got accepted at the University of Film and Television in Munich, where they started producing student short films side by side. Quickly, the realisation came that neither of them wanted to do this, but it was the commercial masterclass that gave them the opportunity to do what they were both about to get really passionate about. 

Max, on the other hand, shares that back in their uni days there was a rumour going around that the university tends to split teams up and put the individuals into different years just to see what each one is capable of. In fear of the potential, “we pretended to not know each other in spite of already being a couple.”

Since the very start, Max knew that he and Jessi were pieces of a puzzle meant to click together. “Apart from mutual interests like being absolute movie nerds, we’re stellar opposites in the others. Jessi is a choreographer and I am an extraordinarily bad dancer. Jessi usually is more outgoing on set, while I love working alone at night. Still, there’s so much admiration and interest for topics one of us is more into than the other, let it be punk, skateboarding, Magick, comics, karaoke, or stand-up comedy – you can try and guess who’s who.”

Jessi’s background is in acting and dancing, so she feels she’s naturally better at relating to the talent in front of the camera, and is keen on helping them to get into the mood necessary for the scene. She also loves public speaking and gets “totally hyped” by wild and chaotic scenarios. 

“Max is more reserved and technical,” she says, further underlining the contrast between the two. “He can deep dive into the visual possibilities, and likes to stay out of the spotlight. That said, we are always both fully involved in every project but we can split if needed. That often helps with tight time schedules and packed shooting days.”

But, what underlines their directing synergy is their shared visual language – something both of them believe to be of utmost importance when working the job they have.

This shared vision is also what helped them through their first ever shared project, a pitch they had won for Saatchi & Saatchi and Sony Ericsson, while still in film school. The task was to create a viral for a mobile phone that could skip a song by being shaken. 

“We invented a sport called ‘shaking’, where people run around the city and shake things or other people,” explains Jessi. “We shot a fake video of two shakers running through Munich. Very little budget, no clue, but and experienced DP and good gut feeling about directing and the visuals we wanted to create, I guess, is what made the project viral.”

And viral it was – sports magazines wanted to write about the new trending sport, shakers in other cities started shaking as well. The project won awards and suddenly, as Max puts it, “we found ourselves with dozens of clients and agency people behind our backs.

Then followed a string of projects both Max and Jessi are proud of. Max quotes a few: 

“McDonald’s is one of those because it was realised in a very short pre production time, but with lots of creative freedom. It had very little to none interference from the client or agency and the visuals, its pace and the overall style turned out really well. Way more handcrafted and grittier than McDonald’s usual commercials.

“Amorelie is another one which will always be special for us. It was shot in Berlin right at the beginning of the Covid lockdown and it felt like we’ve been in a surreal, very intimate parallel world. Which probably only was possible because of these circumstances required a skeleton crew and neither agency or client on set.”

Jessi adds that the duo is very selective regarding the jobs they pitch on and shoot, so naturally most of the time they already see the potential at the script stage. After some deliberation, she picks her own favourites:

“‘Thank You Third World’ was one of our most bold and awarded works and one of our first ones as well. I love the visual love and creativity that went into Loctite, McDonald’s and Cosmos Direct too,” she says. She also gives Amorelie a shout out as one of their most beloved projects, but also adds their first music video for Demolition Disco, which according to her was “a crazy ride through passion, pain and nights in shady swinger clubs.”

Now, Max and Jessi have got two little daughters, so their working and personal relationships often overlap. Because of this, when it comes to tension and frustrations, they’re often not rooted in creativity, but rather in the beat of daily life. 

“Jessi leaves most bottles and packs open,” reveals Max. “Looking back, one could edit a fast-paced montage of me picking up stuff that slips through my fingers when I try to grab a lid.” 

Jessi takes a different direction and says they’re both perfectionists. “Max to an extent that it can drive me crazy,” she adds. “I tend to throw myself into way too many projects and ideas, on a professional and personal level. That in turn leads to way too long days or exhaustion. That can probably frustrate him as well.”

But, after all these years, nothing has really stood between these two. When asked about how they really approach disagreement, Max realises he had never given it much thought before: “It happens rarely and if it does, one of us is usually feeling way stronger than the other one, so it’s time to follow him or her.”

For Jessi, open discussion is non-negotiable. “Otherwise, our life would implode or explode. Emotions and love are a big part of our creative work; they will always be involved. In addition to that, we also agree on most of the thousand professional decisions that need to be made. That helps, for sure.”

It’s this kind of attitude that carries Max and Jessi through the rougher waters, both at home and at work. And if you know one thing about production, you know it’s as chaotic as a job can get. 

Max shares that recently on a project, they had to get rid of two magicians. “They just didn’t fit the script or the films’ timing,” he says. “But the client loved them and no matter what we did they kept popping up again and again. Don’t get me wrong, nothing against magicians at all, but it just wasn’t the right spot for them.”

For Jessi, the challenges are constant – with a collection of 15 to 25 different scenes or set ups full of cast, art department, SFX, VFX and more, every project has the potential to fall into disaster. “And we love that. It’s part of the job,” she says.

“It might be boring, but what I find rather challenging is to make all of the above work with a ‘normal life’ outside the advertising industry. Having a family, staying healthy, trying to keep up friendships and deal with daily life tasks. That is the challenge in a business that requires endless night shifts, work over the weekend and parallel pitches, all the while prepping a shoot.”

Max calls the job of a director “demanding, beautiful and a weird mess,” so he is certain that having somebody to go through it with is an absolute blessing. “It’s some kind of telepathic reinsurance that works without the need of spoken words when we’re on set and see each other after a take, or a decision is to be made.”

“But it can also be a very ignorant and self-absorbed place with egos flying around. I feel it’s an amazing privilege and benefit to work with someone I can truly trust, love and who understands this weird job.”

However, no matter how stressful and demanding the job of a director, it’s one that most practice with great passion, and Max and Jessi are certainly of that kind. 

“I constantly get inspired by everything that does and doesn’t surround me,” says Max. “Let it be funny and awkward situations of everyday life, rogue taxidermy, inventions like those from The Yes Men or Jerry Rubin, a bardcore track I can’t get out of my head, the books I read, a creepy old children’s painting found at a flea market, trips into the woods in the middle of the night, travelling to countries… The list is endless.”

Similarly, Jessi can’t really define her sources of inspiration. “I mean, yes, I’m inspired by movies, art, literature, but I guess, most of the time, it’s the people daring to be different, to do things you wouldn’t expect and people standing up for each other and putting themselves on the line. That inspires me to want more, be more, achieve more.”

And of course, sharing a lifetime and a job with someone will inevitably bring some lessons. For Max, it is to be less judgemental: “Both with my environment and stuff that I just don’t like,” he says. “Experiencing Jessi’s different perspective keeps me open minded without having to agree. I admire her communication skills, enabling her to understand people, their wants and needs. I’m still learning from her in that regard.”

Jessi, on the other hand, leaves us with this: “Max can be quite a workaholic, but he knows his boundaries very well. I am still working on that. I’ve also learned from him how important it is to listen to your inner voice and shut the noise out. Although giving everything to our projects, Max does not bend over backwards and he is a terrible liar. I love that about him.”