Great Guns Partners in Dubai with Long-term Collaborators Phoenix

Spring brings with it a new territory and a new office for global media production company Great Guns. The new venture sees the company partnering with Dubai-based production house, and long-term collaborators, Phoenix.   

Great Guns, founded in 1995 by CEO Laura Gregory, already operates a substantial global network of offices including the US, UK, Germany, Czech Republic, India, South East Asia, China and Japan.

Great Guns has a long-standing reputation for constant innovation, high calibre creative solutions and superb production values, producing, along with its affiliates, a multitude of media assets across its global network, including commercials, online content, interactive media, photography, UX development, apps, gaming, mobile, experiential, animation, 2D&3D CGI and motion graphics as well as live events and creative conferences.

The company has won numerous awards, and in the last year alone, has garnered multiple awards including Gold, Silver and Bronze Cannes Lions, Creative Circle, Shots, Cristal and LIA’s. Great Guns’ Executive Producers are also regular judges and speakers on the global awards circuit, celebrated for their proactive development of talent new to advertising and media. Gregory, herself, is a Guest Speaker at this year’s Dubai LYNX Awards. Both Gregory and her new director signing Omar Hilal, (who won Bronze for Terrible Accident at the Lynx Awards), were invited to speak at Ogilvy Dubai’s prestigious ECD event during the Awards, attended by 13 of the regions Executive Creative Directors, covering Bahrain, Jeddah, Qatar, Riyadh, Kuwait, Beirut, Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

GreatGuns@Phoenix will unite the strengths of both highly awarded production houses, providing clients with a roster of some of the best commercials and branded content directors in the world, exclusively represented across the Gulf from their Dubai headquarters, including US TV Pilot king David Nutter (Game of Thrones, Entourage, The Flash), internationally renowned photographers Yu Tsai, Klaus Thymann and Timothy Allen, legendary music video directors such as Andy Morahan (Band Aid 30, Santigold), world class beauty directors including Pierluca de Carlo, Olivier Venturini, Eva Midgley and Doug Keeve and exceptional new talent like Calum Macdiarmid, Ilya Naishuller and Monatomi.

Leading the charge for GreatGuns@Phoenix is the highly respected and experienced producer Guy Sinclair, with whom Gregory has had a long working relationship for over 15 years. His extensive career spans three decades at both agencies and production companies where he worked with a huge range of clients and brands including: American Express, HSBC, Emirates, Etihad, Mercedes, Pepsi, Masterfoods, Unilever Arabia, Wella, Nestle, Philips, IBM, Proctor & Gamble, Mobily, Samsung and Samba.

Few producers have the combination of Guy's vast international expertise with the local knowledge that comes from 20 years of working in the Middle East.

Phoenix started 2015 with a bang with an international spot for Etihad Airways with the super glamorous Nicole Kidman and a GCC spot for Weston Union with the charming Amr Diab.

Alongside the new office and partnership in Dubai, GreatGuns@Phoenix are also delighted to announce the signing of new directing talent Francesco Caradonna. Francesco is well known to the Middle East advertising community as a result of his amazing recent work for Chrysler.

Born in Southern Italy and now based in London, Francecsco is a storyteller and multi-skilled creative; working as a film director, editor and photographer.  Francesco’s passion extends to feature films, commercials, short films, feature documentaries, music videos and other online content.

Francesco joins GreatGuns@Phoenix following his directorial debut on the documentaries for Chrysler ‘The Performer’ which was a project developed for Chrysler in collaboration with Publicis Middle East.   Written by Executive Creative Director Alessandro Brunori this successful intergrated advertising campaign features Saudi DJ & Rapper Quasi dueling musically with the new Chrysler 300C.  Luigi Pane was the Creative Visualizer for the project.

‘The Performer’ campaign won one Gold (Media), one Bronze (Interactive), and various shortlists at the Dubai Lynx 2015 awards.

The new partnership also marks Great Guns signing director Omar Hilal globally outside of his home territory.  Omar recently shot his first campaign with Great Guns for BBDO Singapore and Tiger Beer for the Asian market. 

The key to Great Guns international penetration is the forward-thinking acumen of Founder and EP Laura Gregory. "My focus has always been to look at the world as a whole," says Gregory. "London might once have been the epicenter of the world's great advertising creative, and continues to be a very strong force in that arena. However, one would be shortsighted not to acknowledge the increasing quality of creativity worldwide. You have to be aware of the changes in the industry and evolve with it. It's a constantly shifting landscape, and actually always has been. Things just shift a little faster than they used to. That's simply the nature of the world we now live in."