Dreams of the big screen come true
by Jon Brooks
UniSA media graduate Gregg Casson is taking on the world … and is
winning awards along the way, earning himself a prestigious US ad
industry award.
The 24-year-old filmmaker, who graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (Multimedia) in 2005 has already achieved what many wouldn’t dream possible in a lifetime, including recent success at the US Clio Awards.
The advertising industry’s equivalent to the Oscars, Casson picked up a Bronze award for a public service announcement he wrote and directed for the United Nations promoting the need to address climate change.
The public service announce-ment, titled Moving Day, shows the unpretentious Prospect-raised director’s talent for lateral thinking.
"It centres on the idea that in the future the earth is in total ruins and the planet is being evacuated in space shuttles," Casson said.
"The idea behind it plays on the old adage of ‘women and children first’, so the story follows a middle-aged man dressing up as a woman in the hope of sneaking on to a shuttle that’s leaving earth.
"I guess it’s a fun way of communicating a serious message."
Casson wrote and shot the 45 second commercial while completing his Masters at the prestigious Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles, California, where he was one of just seven students to be admitted in his class.
Casson said it’s been a long road, even though he’s never doubted he’d be anything but a filmmaker.
"It all started when I saw Jurassic Park when I was nine. My friend and I came home and we were just obsessed, we even started planning the sequel we were going to make," Casson joked.
"After that moment I just knew that I wanted to make films."
While it’s Casson’s dream to eventually make features, he’s keen to cut his teeth in the competitive world of commercial advertising in the United States before making the jump.
"In the US making commercials is a proven way to get in to feature film directing - it’s how Michael Bay who made Transformers and David Fincher who made Fight Club started.
"Commercials are a great way to hone your skills because you get a 30 second window to communicate everything you need to, and they have to be frame perfect and that really challenges you as a film maker.
"If you can nail it in the 30-second world of commercials, it shows you’ve the skills as a story teller to take on bigger projects."
Casson is now negotiating with several L.A based production companies, hoping to sign with one early this year, and says his initial studies at UniSA have been the foundation for his success.
"The US film industry is highly unionised. If you’re on a set and your job is electrical, that’s what you do; you don’t touch anything else, even if that means having 400 people sitting around doing nothing.
"When I first got over there I’m pulling the DP (director of photography) off the camera and shooting scenes myself and people are saying ‘who is this guy?’. It’s a little different over there for sure, but that was the great thing about Magill, it was so hands on and covered pretty much every aspect of film making."