Production affiliations: US - HKM / UK - Independent Films / Canada - Industry
Years directing: 4; started at MTV in 1990.
Shoot days in 2001: 25 shooting days in seven months; Took half the year off to become a father; 4 in January 2002.
Geography: American, based in Los Angeles
Favorite spot: DMI "Chocolate Milk is Fun"
On finally casting non-uglies for Brooklyn Gum: "I would always see other people casting really buff athletes, and I'm over here saying, 'This man is not fat enough.' Or I'm casting for a middle-aged businessman and everyone else is casting supermodels, so I've always felt left out. For once I was able to do that."

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Of the odd and nonsensical, HKM director Michael Patrick Jann says it's his home country.

A former actor and graduate of the MTV school of irreverent comedy, Jann has played with concepts as diverse as a pop-culture look at hookers, an in-depth with the Mr. Cliff of Cliff Notes, and a bizarro men-in-tights nature doc spoof, "Manzelles," for his three-year-long MTV series The State.

This all before trying his hand at commercials.

He's since pitted Michael Andretti against Alex Zenardi for Honda (Rubin Postear, Santa Monica), created possessed televisions for WebTV (FCB, San Fran) and has invented an angelic 9th Floor for Brooklyn Gum (BBH, London).

Jann excels at two things; working with actors and forging brilliant comedy out of any situation. Take Pets.com for instance. Jann says the boards sent to him were thin on concept and the budget was low, but TBWA/Chiat/Day San Francisco wanted something special.

The lead character, a singing sock dog, was created in a matter of days, and after auditioning what amounts to far too many adults with socks on their hands, Jann cast a buddy as the lead. The result was a wildly successful campaign that made the pages of USA Today, topped the Super Bowl XXXIV commercials, and created a sock-puppet franchise for the client.

A recent spot for Got Chocolate Milk (Bozell, NY) saw Jann dealing with good creative, but a limited budget. The spot follows a young boy who earnestly befriends his milk after misinterpreting the message that chocolate milk is fun.

"I think right now in the world of commercials there is something of a dearth of magnificent creative," says Jann. "A lot of jobs seem to revolve around trying to sprinkle the magic funny dust on it."

As for working with actors, Jann says that while casting, the hardest thing is to get them to stop "acting." "Actors learn a lot of bad habits auditioning for commercials. Often you'll have to tell them not to indicate that they're happy. Indication is the biggest sin. It's not pantomime, you need them to be happy."

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