Tom Kuntz

Tom Kuntz's Masterfoods moments alone make for an impressive year. The director's work on Skittles "Touch" is a stroke of subtle comedic genius, an inspired idea and script justly brought to film. "We got some casting approvals and took it in a direction that we weren't really sure anyone would actually let us," says Kuntz. "It's amazing, [the creatives] somehow manage to actually get their client to sign off on the great cut and put it out there instead of it just being a director's cut somewhere. Because generally, I operate on the assumption that we do that and eventually someone will reign it in and it won't be as great." Also for Skittles, Kuntz showed us a new sort of milkman with "Stable," then slid the humor into home for Old Spice with "Foam."He went in a new direction on a big budget effort,Dell "Colors," which "was different from what I usually do and was a concept where, from the minute I got it, I was concerned if we could pull it off or if it was just going to be a steaming disaster," he says. "In the end, I was happy with what we did and it was a fun, big shoot. There were some performance elements, but for the most part it was an art direction job and I enjoyed using that part of my brain."Aside from advertising, other notably enjoyable projects from Kuntz in the last year were LCD Soundsystem's "All My Friends" video and a holiday gem starring the world's most well-endowed puppy.On his favorite project of 2007: "There were obviously a number of commercial jobs I did last year that were very rewarding, but another fun part of last year was doing two music videos in May, back to back. That was really fun, just to have a month of doing that because it is a different medium, to a certain extent, and also because the process is a little different.You're usually coming up with the ideas as well as executing them, and they're also a bit more budget-challenged. It was a fun, film school month to just step away from commercials for a second. It was good to just spend that time immersed in music, working with my own concepts."Read more Creativity 50 profiles.

Tom Kuntz

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