Directing A Large-Scale Commercial for Volkswagen

Back in 2018, I was hired by Volkswagen to be the director on an upcoming global commercial starring supermodel Winnie Harlow. 

At the time they approached me, I was actually on holiday with my family on Jeju-do, an island off the south coast of Korea and was staying in a beautiful but wifi-challenged guesthouse in the middle of the countryside. This made the initial Zoom calls with producers challenging and I wasn’t really in the headspace to dig into work and put together a treatment for the project.

However, once I heard what they were looking to do with the film, I got inspired and I knew that this was a great opportunity to work with a massive brand and a talent whose career I admired so I put down my holiday read and got to work. After being confirmed as the director on the job and returning to Seoul, we had an official PPM over Zoom and started to plan out the logistics needed to realise my vision for the film.

One of the projects of mine that had caught the attention of Volkswagen was my work with the fashion brand IISE and the producers wanted to bring elements from one film in particular that I had produced for them (see that film here).

Essentially, the concept behind this Volkswagen film would be to visually represent the two different (but complimentary) styles of the new T-Roc car. This meant bringing forward two clearly differentiated sides of our star, Winnie Harlow; her professional work side and her relaxed personal side. Additionally, we extended this concept further into the contrasting worlds of the film - an austere and sparse fashion shoot set on the one hand, and the rich and warm world of Lisbon’s old city. This contrast was paired with a voice over from Harlow and a small narrative arc that reflected her ability to seamlessly move between the two worlds that she inhabits in the film.

For the production, I flew out to Portugal and was paired with the fantastic director of photography, Jan Prahl who was great to work with, as were the rest of the crew. From a director’s standpoint, it is always so nice to have a really skilled team working with you so that you can fully focus on the creative elements knowing that the rest is being taken care of.

Having never been to film school and coming from a DIY, guerrilla filmmaking background in which you are so often doing everything yourself and performing all HOD roles, it was wonderful to be able to basically stand in one place and, just through verbal directions, have a talented team of professionals spring into action to deliver the results I was looking for, so I am extremely grateful for that experience.

Despite the tight schedule and big budget, everything remained calm and in-sync on set and we were blessed with perfect weather to showcase the gorgeous, rustic backstreets of Lisbon. Following this, I flew to Berlin for a week of editing at the lovely FilmDeluxe offices.

I am really grateful to have the opportunity and privilege of working at this level with such a great team!

Thanks to the fantastic crew - it really was a team effort to make the shoot a success and I am grateful to everyone