Dream Teams: The Smart Way to Be Stupid with Directing Duo Mister

Filmmakers Miche Sieg and Rose Chirillo, known as ‘Mister’, signed with bi-coastal production company Greenpoint Pictures at the tail end of 2023. Formerly an art director-copywriter duo, they became sick of letting their vision be watered down by other directors in long production pipelines, and so they set about doing it themselves.

Since their first freelance projects - a series of parody ads for ‘Cock Block’ cutting boards and spots for Miche’s trouser-based pottery company ‘A Pair of Plants’ (more on that later) - Mister have applied their stylish, colourful and ‘cleverly absurd’ style to campaigns for the likes of Squarespace, Nike and Truth Initiative.

“We can’t outrun the writer and art director in us,” says Rose, both having worked as creatives for a decade prior to directing. “We definitely both have opinions about everything in pre-production, but on the shoot days, I tend to be in front of the camera with talent, really focused on nailing performance and tone, whereas Miche tends to be behind the camera looking at composition and the bigger picture. I think that’s why it’s nice we’re in such a lock step throughout the process. Then, on set, we’re already aligned so that we can split our focus a bit.” 

“Rose will say, ‘Good on performance’ (and give a thumbs up), and I’ll say, ‘Good on picture’ (and give thumbs up), and then we move on,” adds Miche. “Yes, we definitely have different strengths. We are truly the other side of each other's brain.”

Above: Mister's first freelance venture, 'Cock Block'

While Miche is busy checking for visual consistency, making sure the wardrobe is playing well against the background, and thinking ahead to the edit, she tends to leave the talking to Rose - a funny reversal of the pair’s first meeting that kicked this journey off.

Rose’s studio at the time wanted to find her an art director, and arranged the future partners to meet. “I had just been broken up with two weeks prior and ended up crying to her all night in the bar,” says Miche. “We talked about life and relationships; I don’t think we talked about work once. Somehow, that won her over!” 

The next week, M and R were joined together as MR - and not long after, the “more unique and ownable” elongated version, ‘Mister’.

“We liked that there were two women behind it,” explains Miche. “Once we said it, we never looked back. 10 years later, here we are.”

During that decade, they created award-winning work agency-side, but eventually grew tired of having to hold back from telling talent what to do. “We knew it was time to part ways and freelance so we could work on our own projects,” says Rose. “So one day, we sat down on the couch at the office to throw dumb ideas around, and that’s when we came up with ‘Cock Block’. ‘Mister’ was already how we presented ourselves as a creative team at the time, because we always understood the importance of good branding. But this was the beginning of the next chapter for us.” 

Above: Squarespace Presents 'Next Generation' (dir. Mister)

Now a directorial team, Mister tends towards the more stylised and visually interesting projects. Miche especially enjoys developing a world and building an aesthetic, seeing set design as her calling in another life. This, combined with a relentless dedication to being themselves on set and a passion for meeting new people, results in the duo’s personality permeating their work - in whatever form or medium it takes.

“To be honest, there was a moment when we were trying to be like other directors or ‘fit in’,” says Miche. “We had to correct ourselves and make what we liked and found funny. Once we started to embrace what we are naturally good at, things clicked into place for us as directors.”

She adds, “We leaned into what came naturally; our sense of humour. We tried doing emotional spots but I don’t think we can take ourselves seriously enough for emotional work, and it often felt cheesy. Even then, there always seems to be something a little weird in those spots.”

Both highlighting Yorgos Lanthimos’ film ‘Poor Things’ as a recent source of inspiration, they agree that they strive for a blend of the ‘tonally weird, funny and the beautiful’ in their work - a colourful “clever unseriousness”, as Rose puts it. Gravitating towards comedy that isn’t just funny, but visually appealing too, they’ve found inspiration everywhere from the strong characters in old, campy films and the sketches of ‘Mad TV’ and ‘All That’, to the Coen Brothers’ ‘Raising Arizona’, Danny DeVito’s ‘Matilda’ and the multimedia output of Nadia Lee Cohen.

Above: Nike - 'Air Max Day with Chloe Kim' (dir. Mister)

This space hasn’t always been the most welcoming for women, however.

“It has been largely saturated with - for lack of a better phrase - ‘bro humour’ for a really long time,” explains Rose. “But right now, we’re seeing this shift toward humour that’s a lot more nuanced and chaotic and strange, and I think that’s a big opportunity to break the stereotypes around the genre.”

Pointing out Emma Seligman’s 2023 high school hit ‘Bottoms’ as an example, she says that people are hungry for fresh creativity, from new and diverse voices. “It seems like people are sick of the stuff they’ve already seen, so hopefully that leaves a bigger pathway for women to tell stories with a unique POV and finally be invited to get weird. I know that’s what we’re excited to do.” 

Miche adds, “I really wouldn't know what it’s like to be a man, but I imagine it’s a bit easier. As a woman, you’re not taken as seriously off the bat. We tend to work with a lot of women to avoid dealing with that dynamic. I can tell you we typically get smaller projects. But maybe that’s not about being women and more about being bad at what we do… (joking!)”

Assuredly very good at what they do, they both have very stylish and crafty hobbies-turned-businesses outside of their directing as well.

Looking for reasons to leave the house mid-pandemic, Miche took up ceramics at a nearby studio, turning an idea borne from a mispronunciation ‘A Pair of Plants’ into a bona fide sensation with 79,000 Instagram followers. From iconic trousers in fashion history to a Shaquille O’Neal jersey and David Byrne’s oversized suit, Miche hand-crafts and paints a creative collection of plant pots and vases in the shape of pop culture-inspired clothing.

Similarly looking for creative fulfilment during that period, Rose started Butt Rugly, an outlet for her “stupid drawings” to be turned into unique rugs. “It was a challenge to do something tactile and try to suspend self-judgement while learning something new, which did not always work,” she laughs. “Outside of rugs, I also do a lot of writing - mainly essays, and poetry - and dabble in film photography, like everyone else on the internet.” 

Now signed with Greenpoint Pictures, Mister’s goals for the rest of 2024 remain simple: “Making more and going bigger.”

“Our goal is definitely to create more work in our style to help show the industry who we are,” says Rose, “but also to help convince brands who might not think of themselves as traditionally ‘fun’ that they can get weird, too. There is always a smart way to be stupid. And we want to show them.” 

“We’re just wrapping up a production right now that we’re really excited about - some musical comedy spots. We’re looking forward to sharing those and continuing our collaboration with Greenpoint.” 

Reflecting on their friendship and creative partnership so far, Miche shares that the biggest lesson Rose has taught her is to communicate her emotions. While her first impression of her partner-to-be was, “Wow, she’s so small and has bright red hair,” she also noted Rose’s emotional intelligence from the get-go, and has clearly taken inspiration from this along the way. “I’d say these [first impressions] were pretty accurate,” she says. “She’s still small.”

Conversely, Rose’s most valuable points of learning from Miche have been about building two things: visual worlds and a lasting, working relationship. Well, that and framing a shot for TikTok UI. Looking back at the spark of their partnership, she describes her counterpart as fun and talented, “and not afraid to cry in front of a complete stranger - which I’m into,” she jokes.

“I would say my gut instincts were pretty spot on because there’ve been a lot of laughs, tears and projects I’m really proud of since.”