The Directors: pip + lib

pip (they/them) + lib (she/they) are a multi-talented directing duo who are more like siblings than best mates. They began working together as a journalistic team; creating their own magazine. Within a few years they were documenting youth culture with known publications such as i-D, The Face and Wonderland Magazine.

It’s from these early roots that pip + lib bring an extensive understanding of youth culture into the advertising space. As an award-winning creative team they’ve collaborated with top agencies including Mother, Anomaly and 4Creative, and acted as creative directors for Def Jam and Atlantic Records.

As directors pip + lib have delivered films for major brands including Nike, Lululemon, Birkenstock, Lego, Just Eat and Chelsea FC, and artists like Mahalia and Fred Again. Most recently, they bagged a British Young Arrows Nomination for Best Music Video Director for their HopeFC x Lionesses campaign for the FIFA World Cup—their first production with the Caviar team.

Name: pip + lib 

Location: London 

Repped by/in: Caviar 

LBB> What elements of a script sets one apart from the other and what sort of scripts get you excited to shoot them? 

Pip> A well written one, or one that has an idea, at its core with enough room for us to put our spin and perspective on it. 

Lib> Something that feels either: sillybillyhaha, drama drama drama or beautiful wow stunning. 

LBB> How do you approach creating a treatment for a spot? 

Pip> We chit chat about it, probably say some random thoughts, then either one of us will build from that thought with references, pictures, previous thoughts. We have a WhatsApp chat called ‘refs, nice fings and inspo’ where we both just chuck ideas, sentences, links, pics, whatever we’ve seen in there, and sometimes we might go through that. Once we have an idea lib gets to writing and I get to finding visual refs pics, stills, GIFs etc. we’re pretty split on the treatment stage of me making it look nice and lib making it read and flow nice. 

Lib> We chat - a lot. Asking each other things like: What is important? What is the simplest way of doing that? Then we get excited and come up with ideas. Then we get all scared. I do the writing of the treatments, and it feels like there’s a lot of blank pages to fill. Somedays I feel like an unripe avocado, about to peel my own skin off. But then I rip some skin off and the pages fill up. It gets fun again.

LBB> If the script is for a brand that you're not familiar with/ don’t have a big affinity with or a market you're new to, how important is it for you to do research and understand that strategic and contextual side of the ad? If it’s important to you, how do you do it? 

Lib> As soon as we get a script, we usually do a bit of “looking about”. Watching the brand's other work and checking out any competitors' work. The truth is I like that bit because it’s nice to be sat with a bag of choc buttons watching stuff on my laptop “yh babe, it’s work”. You kidding me! What a life!

LBB> For you, what is the most important working relationship for a director to have with another person in making an ad? And why? 

Lib> Everyone is important (pause for eye-roll). No but seriously. We work with people because we love their work. A wise person once told us, if you surround yourself with a talented team, that’s your job done. And it’s true. 

Pip> Well ultimately lib and I…but we’re like siblings now and have had a ton of therapy so we communicate very well. After us two, I think it’s a pretty even split between producer/EP and DOP. 

We’re both kinda control freaks and like to know what is going on especially with a producer/EP, transparency and strong communication is MASSIVE for us and we like to know context when needed. You gotta trust your producer/EP to back you when you’re the uncomfortable opinion in the room, or to listen and believe you when you say something is crucial or important and they make that happen. 

Then DOP. It’s a super important relationship for me. One that you have to be comfortable enough to say “no, I hate that lighting setup please change it” for example. I’ve felt some DOP’s struggle working with us, because there’s two of us and I can be quite hands on, as I’m a photographer too so usually have quite a clear idea of how we want it shot. But we have found some angels who are incredible to work with. Also for us what’s important is a DOP who’s creative, who throws ideas in, suggests stuff, problem solves, gives options. It’s nice to have someone who rolls with the inevitable punches of production and will find ways around it. We love being a little team with our DOP and producer.

LBB> What type of work are you most passionate about - is there a particular genre or subject matter or style you are most drawn to? 

Pip> I guess, this is a bit wanky but youth culture, something that feels relevant, something queer is always a huge draw for me too. We’re kinda into comedy but not cringe-y HAHA comedy more like, relatable smirk comedy. 

Lib> I love comedy in unexpected places - it’s great when people do funny things with stuff that ain’t ever seen a laugh. Recently I was spiked at my local pub, and I have found myself thinking - I would love to see something that spoke about this subject in a way that would reclaim some joy that that took away, rather than reminding me how much danger is out there. A hard task, could be shit. But it’s interesting to me. 

LBB> What misconception about you or your work do you most often encounter and why is it wrong?

Lib> That we love sports! Don’t get me wrong, we love sports culture, but sportysportsport - it’s not the only thing we do. We are funny and emotional too. And we would love to let our sad flag and our jokes flag see the light of day. 

Pip> That we’re sport directors lol. We don’t even really like sport. But we seem to be typecast for sporty athlete work. We love the culture of sport, especially football / women’s football but like we don’t actually like sport haha. So less of that would be great. Oh and that we’re cis, I’m non binary, so we aren’t a ‘female’ director duo. We’re just a director duo.

LBB> What’s the craziest problem you’ve come across in the course of a production – and how did you solve it? 

Pip> God, so many. One of the funniest was we were shooting a spot at Chelsea Football Club, and we needed to turn the house lights off in this one room. It was vital the lights were off due to the type of shot we were trying to create, a renaissance painting kinda look. But the lights were on a sensor. And no-one knew how to turn them off. So we cleared the set apart from DOP, talent and us and we lied on the floor perfectly still until the lights went off. But that didn’t work so lib and I left set too, and stood in a stairwell. I had no monitor and left the DOP and talent and hoped for the lights to turn off! Thankfully they did haha. 

LBB> How do you strike the balance between being open/collaborative with the agency and brand client while also protecting the idea? 

Pip> We have background experience with working at ad agencies as a creative team so we enter our working relationships with agency/client with empathy and understanding as we’ve quite literally been that side of the monitor. We just try and be humans and be honest with people. We know when to hold our own and stay strong in our integrity, it also helps there’s two of us and we’re each other's sounding board. I think a strong team that you trust is also super important to be able to discuss when its right to push back and when not too. But that comes with communication and trust in your producer/EP. Finding someone who isn’t always pre-empting what the clients going to say or is too afraid to push back. And stay strong as a team and back each other. But ultimately we’re all humans and usually you can chat it out. Lib and I aren’t afraid of an honest chat / check in to see how everyone's feeling. 

Lib> We’ve been the creatives in the green room, and know exactly what it is like, it’s HARD. Now we are on this side of the set, I remind myself that “best outcome” is different for everyone. It is our job as directors to have opinions and ideas, but it’s also our job to have empathy and understanding for what is needed. As a director there is no hard and fast rule of how to approach feedback. Being helpful isn’t weak. Being strong isn’t aggressive. It’s a case by case thing. And the ego must be kept in check - always!

LBB> What are your thoughts on opening up the production world to a more diverse pool of talent? Are you open to mentoring and apprenticeships on set?

Lib> It is a must! But it also needs to be with intention. We need to question the environments we are placing people into. I hate being judged by a standardised “cis-men” model. Me and pip shouldn’t have to behave a certain way because the men before us have made the “how to be a director guide”. We should look at the industry: question and pick apart where: whiteness, straightness, cis-ness and masculine-ness have informed the way in which we work. That’s the only way to make an environment comfortable for EVERY-one! It’s important to be in constant check with our conditioning. Our starting rules: always have pronouns on our call-sheets and make sure trainee’s or runners are treated with respect! 

Pip> YES. Absolutely. 100000%. We need more queers, more gender queers, more working class people, more diverse backgrounds, more of everyone. It's so so so important, it's also crucial to challenge each others perspectives with other people's point of views and stories that are being told, if something doesn’t feel right then I think it's so important to say so, and we try to create a set that’s open and safe and warm and welcomes those sorts of conversations and perspectives because really it's only gonna make the work better and make for a better space and environment. And yes for sure open to mentoring on set, we’d love to get people involved in the pre prod stage and on set. As long as there’s space and a structure for them to come into and to make sure they only got a positive experience from it. But ABSOLUTELY would loveeee to have people who wanna learn / get experience on set.