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Simon Spender

Director Simon Spender

A degree in economics isn’t the usual background for becoming a successful commercials’ director but this was the way life took Simon; firstly making shorts and doc’s then TV commercials where he worked - in various roles - on many hundreds of jobs.

Simon began freelancing as an internet video director and made promotional videos for software developments, website and nightclubs. To break into the TV commercials market, he invested in making four test commercials which won him recognition, representation and work for the likes of Publicis and Saatchi and Saatchi.

Clients include Cereal Partners, Woolwich, BUPA and The Guardian work for which resulted in him being shortlisted for the Best New Director at the Kinsale Sharks.

Warburtons	Woolwich	Bork	Bupa
Bovril	Highly Sprung Sofas	Metro

Highly Sprung Sofas

Director: Simon Spender

Directors comment I was approached by a small, independent sofa retailer who wanted to show that they were very different to the big guys. The script called for a drunk, but acting drunk convincingly is much harder that it appears. To solve the problem we all got drunk. And the casting session was hilarious (but not always for the right reasons). In the end, Grant did an amazing job by being... more

Metro

Director: Simon Spender

Directors comment At first glance, the brief seemed simple enough: Show that the newspaper covers all the main news events and can be read in 20 minutes. We thought news at the speed of life and the idea of ‘sticking your head out of a car window’ would be fun and would get the speed idea across well. However, we found out that one of the hardest things to do is to keep your eyes open – without... more

Bupa

Director: Simon Spender

Directors comment What I had to do here was to re-create the Great North Run – in London. The most difficult thing about re-creating familiar events is that if it doesn’t look ‘right’, the viewer will spend time puzzling and wondering rather than paying attention to the core message. To address this almost subliminal problem, we used carefully composed key scenes, clever SFX and lots of extras. more

More magazine

Director: Simon Spender

Directors comment This was a quick turnaround job that needed to be all done and dusted within a week. No problem, but it was the casting which took the lion’s share of the pre-pro time since we needed to find just the right girl to fit the desired Bauer profile who also had the strength, professionalism and stamina to hold the camera for some ten hours while repeating her monologue over 100... more

Woolwich

Director: Simon Spender

Directors comment I was given a relatively free hand with the development of the treatment since this was still very much in its infancy when I became involved. I decided it was best to keep it fluid and to allow for reactions to the storyline since it helped with the potential awkwardness of the lead as he was very much being ‘watched’. To enhance the rich and expensive feel of the set, I shot... more

Save the Children

Director: Simon Spender

Directors comment Since we were filming in a very remote town in Zimbabwe, it goes without saying that we encountered various difficulties; a high degree of tact and diplomacy were needed throughout since what we needed to show – from a charity perspective - wasn’t necessarily aspects of their life that they wanted to show. But we got off on the right foot by asking the village elder for... more

Bork

Director: Simon Spender

Directors comment Shooting this unusual film was quite a challenge since we were called upon the film things that no one on the crew had ever shot before – mercury, plasma welders, rivet guns, liquid metal – and all at very high speeds. Apart from having to overcome these technical difficulties (which I feel we did admirably) we also had to film in three different locations while working to a... more

Warburtons

Director: Simon Spender

Directors comment This was one of those great fun jobs; the script was cheeky and so were the kids. I hadn’t actually worked with children before but being naturally outgoing (and a bit of a kid myself) I found I related to them remarkably easily. The trick was to clear the room of all crew and simply play with the kids on their level then, when they were ready, the crew came back in one by one... more

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