The Directors: Tusk
Directing duo Tusk, comprised of Kerry Furrh and Olivia Mitchell, is best known for imbuing every project with bold, art-directed exuberance and nuanced character development.
Popping with wild ambition, optimistic oddballs, and hopeful dreamscapes, Tusk’s commercial work includes clients like Sony, Google, Truly, the Met Gala, and Harper Wilde.
Their hilariously insane ad for Liquid Death featured Puritans, pitchforks, and a tallboy of canned water burning at the stake, set to an ’80s pop song. Liquid Death’s “F**k Whoever Started This Shit” was named in Fast Company’s Top 5 Ads of 2023, Adweek’s 20 Best Spots of 2023, and Ad Age’s 40 Best Ads of 2023.
They have integrated brands such as Maybelline, Beats by Dre, and Essentia into videos for pop star Tate McRae and collaborated with other musical artists including Alessia Cara, Brandy, and Camila Cabello. In 2024, Tusk was featured as one of Adweek’s Creative 100.
Tusk’s recent short film Ripe! premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival where it won Best Narrative Short. A queer coming-of-age story set in Spain, the music, lushly-coloured scenes, and grainy film stock uniquely express the feelings of a first, all-consuming crush. Ripe! was executive produced by soccer star Kelley O’Hara and won accolades at the Provincetown, SCAD, and Frameline film festivals among many others.
Name: Tusk (Kerry Furrh and Olivia Mitchell)
Location: Los Angeles
Repped by/in: m ss ng p eces/US
Awards:
Ripe! short film
-Best Narrative Short, Tribeca Film Festival
-won 12 other festivals including Provincetown and SCAD
Ripe! feature script
Tusk
Liquid Death "Fuck Whoever Started This Shit"
-Fast Company Top 5 Ads of 2023
-Ad Age The 40 Best Ads of 2023
LBB> What are some upcoming projects that you're excited about? Tell us a bit about them?
Tusk> We're shooting the feature version of our short film Ripe! this year, and we cannot wait.
It's a dreamlike romance about an American girl who visits Spain and accidentally breaks a local girl's arm playing soccer, then proceeds to fall for her. We made a short film version that won Tribeca last year and somehow landed on some Oscars prediction lists - we are grateful for how the world has opened its arms to these characters and can't wait to shoot the feature this summer!
We're also shooting a series of five bizarre comedy sketches sponsored by a wellness brand that we think will be joyfully unhinged.
The premise of each sketch is basically "Do this stupid ridiculous life-endangering and expensive wellness trend to feel well, (more focused, more calm, etc), or just drink one of these shots."
One of the sketches is a goat yoga slasher where the goats get pissed at some influencers and attack them.
Another features a shy dorky sweet office worker a la Jerry from Parks and Rec who is the only one at the office not suffering through the 3pm slump – when pressed by his co-workers about how he stays so focused, he performs a song called "zap my tits" about how he keeps a generator by his desk and electrocutes himself from time to time. Work is hard and the world is hard and how else shall we stay motivated? We wrote the song and it's kind of a Billy Joel-type dramatic ballad and we're quite excited.
Let’s just say our slate is dynamic.
LBB> What excites you in the advertising industry right now, as a director? Any trends or changes that open new opportunities?
Tusk> We've been getting a lot of boards for ads that have a music video spin which we think is fun as we love energetic, propulsive pieces.
Our natural instincts are in story and character, but having come up in music videos, we were encouraged to also think about how rhythm and style can complement a message or story.
We love incorporating boundary-pushing poppy techniques in purposeful places.
LBB> What elements of a script sets one apart from the other and what sort of scripts get you excited to shoot them?
Tusk> Funny, down-to-earth boards that are self-aware about being a commercial. We love to laugh. Wild colour palettes or dreamscapes also get us pumped. When comedy and a bit of a surreal aesthetic merge… it's go time!!!
LBB> How do you approach creating a treatment for a spot?
Tusk> We start with image pulls.
Kerry usually goes on a deep instinctual adventure pulling a bunch of things that determine aesthetic and tone.
Then we adapt the script accordingly and will push it as far as it seems the agency is comfortable with :)
Recently, we have been incorporating some AI renders that have really helped sell through a unique take on a vision that is impossible to find in reference images.
Because at the end of the day, our goal in our treatments is always to bring our spin to an idea and make it as clear as possible so everyone is on the same page. (Especially knowing that eventually this treatment, if awarded, will be passed around to crew as well.)
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?
Tusk> We have been lucky to do work for products we know and love, for the most part. There have been a couple of times when we weren't as familiar and had to do deep dives on the product and industry to feel like we could understand the brand's needs and be able to ideate in the most constructive way.
We love research though and are open and interested in learning about new worlds, though there's nothing like genuine soul-deep existing passion!!
LBB> For you, what is the most important working relationship for a director to have with another person in making an ad? And why?
Tusk> We're not sure there is a "most important" but we do feel like the director-producer relationship is the most all-encompassing. While a producer is more budget-focused, and a director is more creative-focused, we feel it's important they overlap and understand each other's macro priorities. They're connected. Part of directing is prioritisation.
In advertising especially, we also think that having a strong, present relationship with our agency creatives is super important. We love to be in close communication and have a more humanistic connection with people. We're all just people selling stuff, and we love the feeling of building an idea together that everyone can get excited and start cheering about on a Zoom!!
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?
Tusk> We like funny character-driven pieces that allow for unique, if not over the top, personal expression. And yes, ads still entail character work. There isn't a complete linear narrative necessarily, but there are still beats and desires within a scene that can be shaped with actors so the ads feel textured and dimensional.
LBB> What misconception about you or your work do you most often encounter and why is it wrong?
Tusk> We get a lot of "Hey man, love your work!" on Instagram.
We are not men; however, we are glad the work is resonating!!!!
LBB> What’s the craziest problem you’ve come across in the course of a production – and how did you solve it?
Tusk> *redacted* Just kidding. Kind of. We have run into some wild things. Buy us a beer.
A tamer but still good story - one time we flew to Detroit for a docu shoot about a band coming back from tour and playing a hometown show, but right as our flight arrived the entire city lost power.
There was no heat in the hotel.
No power for lights.
No elevators to load gear.
Our team was very small, and the budget was very low but we ended up somehow finding one generator and turning the artist's show into an acoustic set where everyone brought blankets and puffer jackets and made the damn thing work. It was actually pretty amazing. We aged approximately one year from that two day shoot.
LBB> How do you strike the balance between being open/collaborative with the agency and brand client while also protecting the idea?
Tusk> We take pride in being adaptable – we are here to do a job. Creating often means listening, not talking.
We of course come in with our vision while remaining open to the vision adjusting. There are a lot of ways to make the same spot effective and the agency has usually been working on the creative for months before we even come on so we have respect for where they are coming from.
That being said, if we feel like an agency or client suggestion is not ultimately serving the intended purpose or not working for some technical or creative reason, we'll bring it up and go from there.
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?
Tusk> It's extremely important! The point of art is to feel connected to others. If the pool of artists is not reflective of the world, we're getting a skewed view. We very much support it.
We never really had a mentor and think it could have helped us, so we're especially eager to support diverse artists when we can. It's funny because you never really feel qualified to give advice – we feel like we need our own advice! But then it's like, with art, you can be a mentee and mentor all at once. We're all growing, all the time, and every shoot is different.
LBB> What’s your relationship with new technology and, if at all, how do you incorporate future-facing tech into your work (e.g. virtual production, interactive storytelling, AI/data-driven visuals etc)?
Tusk> We tend to embrace new technology and AI, given there are ethical considerations to be taken. We believe a human will always be needed at the helm. Like, technically AI can do anything but has no spark or vision – whereas art is intentional and specific and has to be directed by a soul with guttural instincts.
We love to use ChatGPT and Claude for brainstorming when we feel stuck and need help analysing an idea and interpreting our instincts. It’s a great sounding board and sometimes spits out completely unhelpful ideas that lead to helpful insights.
LBB> Which pieces of your work do you feel show what you do best – and why?
Tusk> Ripe!
Ripe! is a short film we made that we are shooting as a feature next year. We feel the short shows our most authentic work to date. Performance-wise with the two actors, as well as aesthetically - use of film craft feels like a new peak to us in all senses. People often say that they can’t stop thinking about it and the filmmaking feels self-assured. Which are very high compliments to us!
Liquid Death 'Fuck Whoever Started This Shit'
Puritans burning a can of Liquid Death at the stake while performing 80s choreo to a song written with real-life Liquid Death hate comments? That's the type of ad we can get behind. The best part of shooting this was toward the end of the night on set at like 1am when we grabbed wild lines from all the Puritan extras screaming and cursing at the evil can of water. It got wild. People were crying laughing. It got weirder with each person. The mood was right, very committed.
Tate McRae 'She’s All I Wanna Be' music video
We love the message behind this video. The song explores jealousy—not as a desire to bring someone down, but as a reflection of our own insecurities. We expanded that story to a dance audition, where two girls start off competitive but ultimately team up to take on the real villain—a particularly harsh judge who cuts dancers down. It’s about being honest with our feelings and working through them together. We also love the colour palette and location of this video.
World's Best Cat Litter 'Danger Floof.'
So basically this ad is about a psychotic cat who shoots lasers out of its eyes and destroys things, scored to a rock song that the cat's fictional owner wrote about it. Lovingly, of course. The owner does not perceive the cat's destructive qualities as bad. In fact, the owner declares wanting to go so far as to buy the cat the best cat litter ever so its poop can even have a safe luxurious place to rest. Yes, this was approved. Listen, the TikTok comments speak for themselves – I think the moral of this story is let Tusk be weird.
