Bicoastal production company Coppos Films has signed director Richard Sears.

Known for visually driven storytelling skills, Sears moves over to Coppos from HKM where he has worked since graduating from the Art Institute of San Francisco in 1995. His career in commercials began when his short film adaptation of the Charles Bukowski story "An Evil Town" won the 1995 Cannes Film Festival best short film award. Since, he's directed more than 60 spots through HKM and his Canadian production company, Toronto's Industry Films. Some of his credits include Labatt Blue "Food Fight," Sprints "Dimple Monkey" and "Greg," Mapquest "Lost," Mills Corp "Wife" and Nike "Scarecrow." Also, he's directed the romantic comedy "Bong Water," shot a digital feature "The Myersons" and is currently developing another feature, "Gypsy Hearts" from the novel written by Robert M. Eversz.

Boards caught up with Sears this morning for a Q&A.

Boards: So, why the move to Coppos?

Sears: I had been at HKM for six years and I felt like it was time for a change. You kind of get pigeonholed after being at a company for so long

Boards: So what's the breakdown of your time between features and commercials?

Sears: Between commercials and features it's a 50/50 thing. Films take three to five years to develop so you can do both at the same time.

Boards: Tell us about "Gypsy Hearts".

Sears: I optioned this book and the just script was just finished. It's basically about an ex-patriot who is living in Prague and he is a con man. His con is that he is a movie producer in Prague working on a Tom Cruise film. He gets women to sleep with them, steals their money and then wines and dines them with their own money. Eventually he comes across a Romanian gypsy woman and falls in love with her but it turns out she is conning him.

Boards: It sounds like features are your first love.

Sears: Ultimately, in the long run commercials are not as satisfying. They are satisfying for a couple months; you make them, they are on the air, but then they are gone. But, with a movie you spend so much time on it. With a commercial they go so fast it's instant gratification and they give me a change to try things out things I otherwise wouldn't get to try.

Boards: Your Labatt Blue commercial is pretty action packed whereas the rest of your reel is more dialog driven. How was that to shoot?

Sears: Nike "Scarecrow" is kind of action based and I had done some stuff based in action and comedy. Labatt was by far the biggest sequence I had to do where it was choreographed with stunt coordinators. The most important factor was it seemed like the people were having fun, other wise it would be punk kids fucking up this restaurant.

Boards: What about Sprint "Dimple Monkey" or Mapquest "Lost?"

Sears: I remember thinking, if this is played the wrong way it will be really annoying. So, I had the guy play it like he had a serious mental problem or a death in the family, treating the Sprint guy as priest or shrink. It worked well once he got that direction. The tone of it completely switched. For Mapquest, the beauty here is the silence. What is truly annoying to me right now in commercials is everything is so jam packed with dialog, supers and titles, an all out assault on the senses. Mapquest has a lot of wholes and beats between the lines in this spot; it lets the landscape take over as a character as well.

Boards: How has the Canadian market treated you?

Sears: In the USA, they pigeonhole you. This has not been the case in Canada. A Rogers Cable spot I just did for Mclaren McCann, Toronto, about waiting is all slow visual vignettes. I think diversity is really important as a director, not doing the same thing over and over again. Dialog and comedy is my focus. It's nice to go higher in the visual aesthetic or do a dramatic visual vignette spot but I always keep storytelling as focus.

Boards: This "The Myersons" film was digital, right? How did you like the format?

Sears: It was shot on digital video due to budget constraints and is a work in progress. I didn't like the digital format. I like the flexibility and what it allows for actors, but the look is really horrible. It will never have the strength of film. There's just something magical about sending film to a lab and getting it back.

http://www.copposfilms.com