Australian film maker Ben Briand recently won the Cannes Young Director Award, and has been dubbed “One of Australia’s most promising film makers” by Filmink Magazine. He has helmed a variety of projects featuring Cate Blanchett, The Vines and Public Enemy. He has directed distinct commercial campaigns for clients such as Telstra, Sony Ericsson, Westfield, Toyota and Ballantines Whiskey to name a few.
To us, Briand’s work stands out in the way he delicately brings fashion in to his sharply narrated short films. Fashion films got popular very quickly due to new camera technology making it easy for almost everyone to record HD video. This evolution in technology has allowed photographers to create moving versions of their typically still images, leaving a vacuum- flat stories lacking narratives. Where fashion photographers often struggle to make the move from shooting stories in stills to shooting stories on film, Briand is already a master in story telling on film.
“- You could say that I like to inject a certain aspect of beauty and seduction into my narrative and commercial work which has lead to a natural foray into the fashion world. Bringing a narrative thread to the ‘fashion film’ is a goal that I am definitely pursuing at the moment.”
His short film Apricot has gotten a lot of attention online, and was voted Best Narrative film on Vimeo by its 3 million users at the Vimeo Awards in New York City 2010. Besides shooting short films his currently working on a few commercial projects: “- I’m working on the campaign imagery each season for the luxury accessories label, Benah. A big part of the brand’s sudden and rapid notoriety and interest has been the contribution of the narrative elements to the brand. Currently we are in pre production on something special with multiple narratives for upcoming Australian Fashion Week.”
We’ll showcase three of his films, Apricot, Some Static Started, and Castor & Pollux:
Check out his portfolio here.
