Ad Bits with Alex Grossman

Mark Summers has been casting for over three decades. He cast Madonna’s Hung Up, was the UK casting director on Michael Jackson’s This Is It, and has cast adverts for Boots, Aussie and Virgin, casting real people across five continents along the way. He runs three businesses under one roof, casting, dance and management, out of a studio in Shepherd’s Bush that used to be Virgin’s Townhouse Recording Studios.

He trained as an actor, and says that’s his creative magic bag when he’s directing talent.

In this one we get into:

How training as an actor shapes the way he casts
Michael Jackson, the one person who left him star struck
Casting Madonna’s Hung Up, and why casting is casting however famous the artist
From Umatic tapes and polaroids to self-tapes, and what got lost on the way
Casting under NDA when you can’t use the artist’s name to attract talent
Why casting is the foundation of a campaign
Why a 30 second ad can be harder to cast than a feature
Going through 4,000 to 5,000 suggestions for one role
Street casting real people, including real doctors for a cataract surgery story in India
Why casting across continents needs teams who understand the culture and the paperwork
Losing a job you’ve bid on for months
Why the relationships matter most after 30 years

Music supplied by Felt Music.

Supported by Green Desert, UK based representation for trusted service production partners across Europe.

She stopped her car outside a film set and asked a security guard for a day’s work. Now she works across MJZ and The Pearlin.

Leonie Ellis is the founder of LE Collaborations and one of the most experienced new business figures in commercial production. She has helped build and represent production companies at very different stages of their lives.

Before advertising, her world was elite sport, horses and a degree of competitiveness that clearly never went away. Then a geography degree, a summer of teaching herself how television worked, and a lot of hustle.

In this one we get into:

What competing at a high level taught her about reading people and performing under pressure
Rowing at university and learning when a team needs motivation and when it needs sensitivity
Stopping the car outside a film set and asking for a day’s work
Working on Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Cold calling the BBC to get onto Casualty
How a temporary job at M&C Saatchi turned into a production career
Why trust matters, whether you’re launching a company like The Pearlin or keeping an established one like MJZ relevant
Why new business is a lone ranger job, and why it needs more understanding
Why she doesn’t love the word sales
Why the industry has to protect the time up front

Music supplied by Felt Music.

Supported by Green Desert, UK based representation for trusted service production partners across Europe.

Gemma Conway is Executive Producer at Omnicom Production in Los Angeles, with more than twenty years across BBH, Mother, 72andSunny and Droga5. We talk Business Affairs, the Philadelphia 76ers, London versus New York versus LA, getting producers in before the script is signed off, AI as a tool, and a deliverables list of 3,500 assets.

Ad Bits is supported by Green Desert Productions. One call. 14 territories. greendesertproductions.com

John Mouratis produced the BBC Winter Olympics film Trails Will Blaze, stop motion with 700 3D printed athletes and real fire. It won a Grand Clio and a D&AD Yellow Pencil. We talk fire, triple bidding, late sign off, agencies run like factories, and why a great career is built on the nos.

Ad Bits is supported by Green Desert Productions. One call. 14 territories. greendesertproductions.com

He trained as a mime. He ended up directing The Rolling Stones.

Joe Connor is a writer and director who trained in experimental and visual theatre, and has since worked with The Rolling Stones, Coldplay, Sam Smith and Paul Weller, plus Land Rover, Volvo and Louis Vuitton. He has directed three feature length documentaries, worked on The Night Manager, makes his own music and keeps making experimental work through Supermodel.

In this one we get into:

Studying mime at the Central School of Speech and Drama, and how a job as a 35mm projectionist at the Everyman in Hampstead turned into his film schoolGoing to Bolivia with a camera to make a documentary on the cocaine trade, and weeks filming Dennis Rodman before North KoreaWhy music videos were the wild west, and the time he sent two TVs into spaceWhat Paul Weller taught him about building a long careerWhy he thinks commercials have become so risk averseMaking a Rolling Stones video in lockdown by posting lenses to filmmakers around the worldWhy the imperfect, human bit is where the magic comes fromWhy staying in your lane leaves you at the mercy of it

A big thank you to Kitty Sharp at Felt Music for kindly letting me use some of their music on Ad Bits. Just trying it out, hope you like it.

Supported by Green Desert, UK based representation for trusted service production partners across Europe.

Kit Lynch-Robinson is series director on Clarkson's Farm, spent years on Top Gear and The Grand Tour, directed Chris Hemsworth through Limitless, and makes commercials for Porsche, Toyota and Hawkstone.

He wanted to be a stuntman, worked out directing was all the fun without the danger, and his careers teachers suggested the police.

In this one we get into planning obsessively and leaving room for chaos, directing Hemsworth through real fear, coaching Caleb Cooper through the Hawkstone leap, why a perfect CGI ad left him feeling nothing, what lets a director say no, and why Top Gear never shot draft one, they shot draft 25.

Supported by Green Desert, UK based representation for trusted service production partners across Europe.

Thanks to Kitty Sharp at Felt Music for kindly letting me use some of their music on Ad Bits.

Saymon Souza Medeiros is Creative Director at BigTime Creative Shop in Riyadh, ranked number one Creative Director in the Middle East and Africa, at the fourth most awarded independent agency in the world. This year he won a Cannes Lions Grand Prix, three Golds, a Silver and a Bronze for Lucky Fan Index.

He started work at 14 in southern Brazil and has since made work with Messi, Beckham and some of the biggest creators online. We talk about two days with Messi and his family, why footballers can be easier on set than influencers, what brands get wrong about Saudi, an idea that took eight years to win at Cannes, and why a director's voice matters more than a polished treatment.

Ad Bits is supported by Green Desert Productions. One call. 14 territories. greendesertproductions.com

Morgan has been behind some remarkable work over the years, including FKA twigs’ Cellophane, Eusexua and Perfect Stranger, as well as major projects across advertising, music and fashion including Nike Jordan, RuPaul’s Drag Race UK and H&M x Heron Preston.

We talk about creative risk, impact production, the relationship between producers, directors and artists, knowing when to push an idea and when to leave it alone, and the growing tension between instinct, data and testing.

It is a conversation about the judgement behind great work, and why the projects people remember are usually the ones where somebody was prepared to take a chance.

Supported by Green Desert Productions.

Aaron Rocca is Senior TV Producer at Mother in London, with a career that has taken him from account services in Melbourne to producing ambitious creative work across Australia and the UK.

Aaron joins Alex to discuss his route into production, protecting unusual ideas and balancing creative ambition with budgets and schedules.

They get into KFC’s Believe platform, Coach’s On Your Own Time with Elle Fanning, Trainline, collaborating with directors including Vedran Rupic, and the invisible decisions that shape the finished film.

Supported by Green Desert, UK based representation for trusted service production partners across Europe.

Director and Pulse Films cofounder Ian Bonhôte joins Alex Grossman to discuss his journey through advertising, filmmaking and emotionally driven documentary storytelling.

Ian talks candidly about building Pulse, the four stages of a director’s career, the importance of great crews, and the making of McQueen, Rising Phoenix and Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story.

A fascinating conversation about creativity, ambition, longevity and why the strongest work always begins with something human.

Supported by Green Desert, UK based representation for trusted service production partners across Europe.