Tom Shankland Signs to Great Guns and Hits the Ground Running with New Volkswagen Campaign
UK born director Tom Shankland has just joined the Great Guns roster and takes no time storming back into commercials with a comical and heartwarming new spot for Volkswagen out of Memac Ogilvy in Dubai.
Playing on their ‘buy smart to look smart’ slogan, the film opens on little Tommy who is wistfully gazing out the window at his neighbor Sami’s smarter, cooler dad as he cleans and polishes his new VW. He’s clearly the envy of both Tommy and his dad.
Tom, who is gifted with the ability to capture great performance, certainly doesn’t fall short here, with humor and lightheartedness running through the entire film. The audience should always be able to recognise the comedy in the film, and even when Tommy is expressing disappointment with his dad, his face should still make the audience smile.
Tom comments: “The obvious challenge was finding a cast and location that would work for two versions - Arabic and English/American. And also a strong young boy at the center of it all. I had a hunch that LA might offer strong options. I worked with casting directors Debbie Manwiller and Russel Boast who found Anthony, (the hero boy), who was a complete star. Because it was LA there were a fair share of classic Hollywood stories. Like the five-year-old who came in to audition and, after we'd all tried to be very sensitive and 'sesame street-ish' to put him at ease, just sighed and said 'come let's just do this, I'm here for the money.'”
Aside from commercials, Tom has been busy directing Emmy nominated ‘The Missing’ and BAFTA nominated ‘Ripper Street’, ‘House of Cards’ series 4 and the Marvel/Netflix follow-up to ‘Jessica Jones’ , ‘Luke Cage’.
Tom is represented globally by Great Guns.
