Comedy director Kenan Moran has signed with Curious Pictures for exclusive TV commercial representation.
Moran, who recently directed a seven-spot Comedy Central image campaign through the company on a freelance basis, was working with Czar U.S. An alumnus of MTVs on-air promo department, he brings a comic sensibility and solid live-action experience to a production company long associated with animation and mixed media work.
Commenting on the addition of live-action talent Moran to the studio roster, Curious Pictures exec producer Mary Knox, I think of Curious as a collection of extremely smart artists, regardless of whether or not they work as animators. Ive been a fan of Kenan for a long time, and Comedy Central proved to us how strong he is conceptually.
Theres a deep array of strong, versatile talent here," said Moran. "But most important, its a place of ideas. And I want to play with the tools here and use them in new ways to solve problems for agency creative people and their clients.
Moran said he is also intrigued by the prospects of Curious Pictures motion capture system the only one in New York and the potential it allows him to create characters that he can animate in realtime. It was employed to create a number of the comic effects seen in the Comedy Central work.
Conceived on the tagline Comedy is dangerous. Please, leave it to the professionals, each spot realizes a single prank gone horribly wrong, with loads of effects to emphasize the comedy. Moran wrote three of the spots in the campaign, and co-wrote two of the others.
XEROX stars a chubby office worker who cant resist the late-night temptation to photocopy his butt. Unfortunately, the copiers glass plate cant handle his weight and hes stuck, and when he tries to pull himself out by the power cord on the window AC unit above him, it of course falls on his head, Wile E. Coyote-style. TP tells the tragic story of a bunch of high school kids performing the time-honored tradition of draping suburban homes with toilet paper, only this time theyre chased by an angry dog, which goes on the attack and rips off one of the kids arms.
In PANTSD, a guy sneaks up behind his pal whos shooting baskets from mid-court and yanks his pants down. But the jokes on the jokester when, pants around his ankles, the victim loses his balance and falls onto the perps head, burying it (with the aid of a Flame) deep where the sun dont shine.
Not a lot of people will let you show a man with his head up someone elses ass, says Moran. And Im grateful for that.
The Comedy Central package was a return to Morans roots in broadcast promotion. He got his start in the business as a janitor at the storied Jim Henson Prods.
Polishing a brass plate at the front door each week gave him a chance to try out visual gags in front of the security cameras wide-angle lens providing an early lesson in camera placement and lens choice. There were monitors all through the building, so it was a chance to put on a little show, he recalls. Everybody at Henson was serious about their work, but nobody took themselves too seriously. It was all about keeping the kid inside alive and having fun.
In 1990, he left Henson, where hed worked his way up to P.A., to join MTV as a senior producer for the venerable on-air promotions department, producing and directing his own promo concepts and winning a shelf-full of Cable Aces, Peabody Awards and daytime Emmys in the process.
Thats where I became a filmmaker and learned about strong brand positioning, said Moran. He was also directing shows, including ZOO TV, which featured Morans parody spots, which were dropped into the middle of commercial breaks and doubled as bumpers.
In 1999, Moran signed with Compass, where he won a Gold Clio in 2000 for a Companion Animal Placement PSA and began building a national reel with spots for Eggo and Cascade. Moran moved to Czar US (formerly Public Domain) in 2002, where he directed spots for Adidas, Nintendo, Burger King, EA Sports, Game Crazy, Texas Department of Transportation and Comcast Digital Cable.
A Captain Morgan rum spot gave him a chance directing celebrities. The marketing team had persuaded Clinton administration strategist James Carville to appear in a spot, but no one told him hed be in a Jacuzzi until he met Moran on the set.
He would only give me 30 seconds to explain why he should do this, Moran recalls. I told him because this was good comedy, and though there were other ways to film it, this was the best way to go. I also told him its my job to make him funny. I asked him to believe in the humor and believe in me. He did, and the spot worked out great.
As the Comedy Central tagline says, comedy is dangerous and best left to the professionals.
Curious Pictures (www.curiouspictures.com) is touted as being the largest animation studio in New York and the home to award winning creators of animated television series, television commercials and celebrated animated characters in picture books and television. Curious produces acclaimed hit TV shows, such as Codename: Kids Next Door and produced Sheep in the Big City for Cartoon Network. Curious incorporates elements of animation, design, production and brand strategy in creating successful branded entertainment for Mattel and AOL as well as commercials for American Express, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Target, Burger King, Hummer and hundreds of other companies. Curious Pictures was founded in 1993 by partners Susan Holden, Steve Oakes, David Starr and Richard Winkler.
