Movie Advertising
I was Co-Creative Director, Copy Chief, and a Producer/Director of trailers and television at Michel/Russo Advertising.
Michel/Russo created the poster, the trailer, and the television campaign for AFTER DARK MY SWEET. Premiere Magazine nameed our campaign Best Trailer and Onesheet of the year.
Michel/Russo created the poster for OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY. The creative challenge was that the totally unlikeable and despicable main character, had to be made "likeable/charming" in order to leverage Danny DeVito's star power.
Michel/Russo created the poster, the trailer, and the television campaign for Oscar-nominated film, THE FIELD. Our trailer won Best Trailer at the Key Art Awards (the Oscars or Clio Awards for movie advertising).
Michel/Russo created the poster, and the trailer for THE SCENT OF GREEN PAPAYA, Viet Nam's first Oscar-nominated film. The challenge was to tell the story and convey the emotional power of this beautiful film (entirely in French and Vietnamese) in a trailer without any dialogue, for US theatrical distribution.
Michel/Russo created the poster, the trailer, and the television campaign for JEFFREY. The creative challenge was to market a gay romcom to a mainstream audience, at a time when AIDS was still a fearful, untreatable disease. Our solution was to make the characters and their story relatable and susceptible to empathy, treating the movie as a romcom about a couple who happend to be gay—NOT a gay romcom, while giving the trailer audience several legitimate laughs in a minute or two in the trailer—"Life is an adventure when one of you is sure… and the other is positive."