film director
A film director controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualizes the screenplay (or script) while guiding the film crew and actors in the fulfilment of that vision. The director has a key role in choosing the cast members, pr ...
,
music video director
A music video director is the head of music video production. The director conceives of videos' artistic and dramatic aspects while instructing the musical act, technical crew, actors, models, and dancers. They may or may not be in collaboration ...
,
screenwriter
A screenplay writer (also called screenwriter, scriptwriter, scribe or scenarist) is a writer who practices the craft of screenwriting, writing screenplays on which mass media, such as films, television programs and video games, are based.
T ...
interactive
Across the many fields concerned with interactivity, including information science, computer science, human-computer interaction, communication, and industrial design, there is little agreement over the meaning of the term "interactivity", but ...
holiday season
The Christmas season or the festive season (also known in some countries as the holiday season or the holidays) is an annually recurring period recognized in many Western and other countries that is generally considered to run from late Novembe ...
OfficeMax
OfficeMax is an American office supplies retailer founded in 1988. It is now a subsidiary of The ODP Corporation, which is headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida. As of December 2012, OfficeMax operated 941 stores in 47 states, Puerto Rico, the U.S ...
short film
A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes ...
created to raise awareness of the danger of placing too much
personal information
Personal data, also known as personal information or personally identifiable information (PII), is any information related to an identifiable person.
The abbreviation PII is widely accepted in the United States, but the phrase it abbreviates ha ...
Hawaii
Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is ...
when he was 10 years old. His interest in video and computers started when he was a young boy. When he was 8 years old, he created short films on a Super 8 camera and programmed text
adventure game
An adventure game is a video game genre in which the player assumes the role of a protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and/or Puzzle video game, puzzle-solving. The Video game genres, genre's focus on story allows it to draw ...
s on a
Commodore 64
The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit computing, 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International (first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show, January 7–10, 1982, in Las Vegas). It has been listed in ...
personal computer
A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or techn ...
Kailua, Hawaii
Kailua () is a census-designated place (CDP) in Honolulu County, Hawaii, United States. It lies in the Koolaupoko District of the island of Oahu on the windward coast at Kailua Bay. It is in the judicial district and the ahupua'a named Ko'ol ...
. Returning to the continental US, he worked in
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
and
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
before moving to
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
in 1993. Not a fan of organized education, Zada declined scholarships to film school, preferring to go out and learn things on his own. In 1997, he and co-founder Greg Hipwell launched the
website
A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Wikipe ...
skyplane.com, which was acquired by Zefer in 1999.
Zada currently lives in
Mill Valley, California
Mill Valley is a city in Marin County, California, United States, located about north of San Francisco via the Golden Gate Bridge and from Napa Valley. The population was 14,231 at the 2020 census.
Mill Valley is located on the western and n ...
, with his wife and children.
Career
In 2000, Zada and partner Daniel Stein co-founded the San Francisco-based digital
advertising agency
An advertising agency, often referred to as a creative agency or an ad agency, is a business dedicated to creating, planning, and handling advertising and sometimes other forms of promotion and marketing for its clients. An ad agency is generall ...
Evolution Bureau (EVB). The company's growth as a full-service agency allowed him, as the firm's Executive Creative Director, to direct advertising campaigns for clients for television and the internet. In 2006,
Omnicom Group
Omnicom Group Inc. is an American global media, marketing and corporate communications holding company, headquartered in New York City.
Omnicom's branded networks and specialty firms provide services in four disciplines: advertising, customer re ...
bought a 50% interest in the firm. By 2008, EVB had grown to a 65-person company and Zada allowed Omnicom to acquire a majority stake in the company, and at the end of 2008, Zada left the company to pursue a career as a video and film director. Zada signed with film production company Tool of Northern America (TNA) in January 2009 and commutes between his Mill Valley home and Los Angeles.
Projects
In 2006, Zada and Evolution Bureau, in collaboration with advertising company "Toy." of
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* ...
interactive
Across the many fields concerned with interactivity, including information science, computer science, human-computer interaction, communication, and industrial design, there is little agreement over the meaning of the term "interactivity", but ...
holiday
viral marketing
Viral marketing is a business strategy that uses existing social networks to promote a product mainly on various social media platforms. Its name refers to how consumers spread information about a product with other people, much in the same way tha ...
campaign for
OfficeMax
OfficeMax is an American office supplies retailer founded in 1988. It is now a subsidiary of The ODP Corporation, which is headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida. As of December 2012, OfficeMax operated 941 stores in 47 states, Puerto Rico, the U.S ...
. The ''Elf Yourself'' interactive website allows visitors to upload pictures of themselves, or their friends, which they can then see on the dancing elfs. Originally with only one elf, the campaign was first used during the
holiday season
The Christmas season or the festive season (also known in some countries as the holiday season or the holidays) is an annually recurring period recognized in many Western and other countries that is generally considered to run from late Novembe ...
, beginning in November 2006, and returned each holiday season afterwards. When first released, it was a surprise hit and exceeded production's expectations with more than 194 million views in six weeks, and received the interactive involvement of more than 123 million people who uploaded photos of themselves to be seen on the
Christmas
Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world. A feast central to the Christian liturgical year, ...
elves. Beginning in 2007, the site used four elves and viewers could upload different images for each one.
In 2011, Zada wrote and directed '' Take This Lollipop'' as both an interactive horror short film and a Facebook application, using the
Facebook Connect
The Facebook Platform is the set of services, tools, and products provided by the social networking service Facebook for third-party developers to create their own applications and services that access data in Facebook.
The current Facebo ...
app to allow viewers to bring themselves into the film using pictures and messages from their own Facebook profile. Originally intended as a social experiment, Zada admits he "threw the script together" in approximately 30 minutes, and completed the project in four weeks along with developer Jason Nickel and the collaborative efforts of Tool of North America. In November, 2011, "Take This Lollipop" was noted as the fastest-growing Facebook application.
Zada TNA worked with Australia's Tourism Victoria and directed the
crowdfund
Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising money from a large number of people, typically via the internet. Crowdfunding is a form of crowdsourcing and alternative finance. In 2015, over was raised worldwide by cro ...
ed "Remote Control Tourist" which, over a five-day period in October 2013, allowed potential
Melbourne
Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a metrop ...
visitors to
virtually
In mathematics, especially in the area of abstract algebra that studies infinite groups, the adverb virtually is used to modify a property so that it need only hold for a subgroup of finite index. Given a property P, the group ''G'' is said to ...
explore the city using
social media
Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social me ...
. Zada stated "Hundreds of photos, videos, and data will come to life and give anyone who is thinking of visiting or is currently visiting Melbourne the coolest and most interesting way to research and explore the city."
Zada helmed the 2016 film '' The Forest''. '' Game of Thrones'' star
Natalie Dormer
Natalie Dormer (born 11 February 1982)Taylor Kinney
Taylor Jackson Kinney (born July 15, 1981) is an American actor and model. He has played Mason Lockwood in ''The Vampire Diaries'', Jared in ''Zero Dark Thirty'', Phil in '' The Other Woman'', and Chicago Fire Department Lieutenant Kelly Severi ...
starred, and
Focus Features
Focus Features LLC is an American film production and distribution company, owned by Comcast as part of Universal Pictures, a division of its wholly owned subsidiary NBCUniversal. Focus Features distributes independent and foreign films in the ...
has the
North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the C ...
n distribution rights to the film, which was Zada's
feature film
A feature film or feature-length film is a narrative film (motion picture or "movie") with a running time long enough to be considered the principal or sole presentation in a commercial entertainment program. The term ''feature film'' originall ...
directorial debut.
Recognition
In speaking toward ''Elf Yourself'' in his book ''Adland: Searching for the Meaning of Life on a Branded Planet'', author James P. Othmer called it "a strange, corny, yet enormously successful website." He observed that while 19 other sites created for OfficeMax had modest success, it was "nothing like the level of action that came out of the Elf Yourself site," and that, as created by Zada, the site "not only transcended the online genre; it transcended advertising and became the kind of cultural event that marketers dream of".
Zada's ''Take This Lollipop'' project has been the recipient of positive media attention, receiving national publicity, such as in '' Adland'', '' Brandchannel'',
CNN
CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by t ...
, ''
IndieWire
IndieWire (sometimes stylized as indieWIRE or Indiewire) is a film industry and review website that was established in 1996. The site's focus was predominantly independent film, although its coverage has grown to "to include all aspects of Hollyw ...
'', ''
Forbes
''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also rep ...
'', ''
Digital Trends
Digital Trends is a Portland, Oregon-based tech news, lifestyle, and information website that publishes news, reviews, guides, how-to articles, descriptive videos and podcasts about technology and consumer electronics products. With offices i ...
'', ''
Adweek
''Adweek'' is a weekly American advertising trade publication that was first published in 1979. ''Adweek'' covers creativity, client–agency relationships, global advertising, accounts in review, and new campaigns. During this time, it has cove ...
'', ''
The Star-Ledger
''The Star-Ledger'' is the largest circulated newspaper in the U.S. state of New Jersey and is based in Newark. It is a sister paper to ''The Jersey Journal'' of Jersey City, ''The Times'' of Trenton and the ''Staten Island Advance'', all of wh ...
'', ''
GlobalPost
''GlobalPost'' is an online US digital journalism company that focuses on international news founded on January 12, 2009, by Philip S. Balboni and Charles M. Sennott. Its stated mission is "to redefine international news for the digital age." ...
'', ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', ''
Advertising Age
''Ad Age'' (known as ''Advertising Age'' until 2017) is a global media brand that publishes news, analysis, and data on marketing and media. Its namesake magazine was started as a broadsheet newspaper in Chicago in 1930. ''Ad Age'' appears in mul ...
'', and has garnered international attention with coverage by newspapers and magazines including ''
The Sydney Morning Herald
''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily compact newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, and owned by Nine. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuously published newspaper in ...
Sky Italia
Sky Italia S.r.l. is an Italian satellite television platform owned by the American media conglomerate Comcast. Sky Italia also broadcasts three national free-to-air television channels: TV8, Cielo and Sky TG24. As of 2018, following an agr ...
International Business Times
The ''International Business Times'' is an American online news publication that publishes five national editions in four languages. The publication, sometimes called ''IBTimes'' or ''IBT'', offers news, opinion and editorial commentary on busi ...
'',. The project has sparked discussions over how to protect children when they are using the internet, with coverage from ''
The New Zealand Herald
''The New Zealand Herald'' is a daily newspaper published in Auckland, New Zealand, owned by New Zealand Media and Entertainment, and considered a newspaper of record for New Zealand. It has the largest newspaper circulation of all newspapers ...
'', CNN, and ''Persoenlich''. In a commentary on how parents must educate their children about the dangers inherent in a releasing of personal information about themselves to the internet,
CNN
CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by t ...
reported that the film took the worst fears about posting personal information on the internet, and turned them into "two minutes of horror." and later reported that "Behind the litany of frightening facts and figures (not to mention fears like those preyed upon in viral-video ''Take This Lollipop'', an interactive horror film that incorporates text and images from your Facebook profile) lurks a disturbing truth."
Zada has won over 70 industry awards and has been recognized by ''
Adweek
''Adweek'' is a weekly American advertising trade publication that was first published in 1979. ''Adweek'' covers creativity, client–agency relationships, global advertising, accounts in review, and new campaigns. During this time, it has cove ...
Communication Arts
''Communication Arts'' is the largest international trade journal of visual communications.Au ...
'', ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', '' Contagious Magazine'' as well as many other magazines, newspapers and books.
Partial awards and nominations
* 2004, Cannes Cyber Lion award for Wrigley's Winterfresh for ''Winterfresh Network''
* 2005, Internet Advertising Awards Competition, 'Best in Show' for ''Redwood Creek''
* 2006,
ADDY Award
The American Advertising Federation (AAF), headquartered in Washington, D.C., is the oldest national advertising trade association in the United States. The AAF also has 15 district operations, each located in and representing a different region ...
for Adidas Basketball for ''Step Inside KG''
* 2006, Cannes Cyber Lion award for
Burger King
Burger King (BK) is an American-based multinational chain of hamburger fast food restaurants. Headquartered in Miami-Dade County, Florida, the company was founded in 1953 as Insta-Burger King, a Jacksonville, Florida–based restaurant chain ...
SXSW
South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, T ...
award for
LeapFrog
Leapfrog is a children's game in which players vault over each other's stooped backs.
History
Games of this sort have been called by this name since at least the late sixteenth century.
* 2007, Ad:Tech Awards, 'Best Integrated Campaign', Adidas Soccer ''MLS Mashups''
* 2008, Ad:Tech Awards, 'Best of Show',
OfficeMax
OfficeMax is an American office supplies retailer founded in 1988. It is now a subsidiary of The ODP Corporation, which is headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida. As of December 2012, OfficeMax operated 941 stores in 47 states, Puerto Rico, the U.S ...
SXSW
South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, T ...
award for
OfficeMax
OfficeMax is an American office supplies retailer founded in 1988. It is now a subsidiary of The ODP Corporation, which is headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida. As of December 2012, OfficeMax operated 941 stores in 47 states, Puerto Rico, the U.S ...
''Elf Yourself''
* 2012,
Advertising Age
''Ad Age'' (known as ''Advertising Age'' until 2017) is a global media brand that publishes news, analysis, and data on marketing and media. Its namesake magazine was started as a broadsheet newspaper in Chicago in 1930. ''Ad Age'' appears in mul ...
's '2012 Creativity 50'
:; Take This Lollipop:
* March 2012, won Overall 'Best in Show', and First Place 'Experimental' at
SXSW
South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, T ...
* April 2012, won
D&AD
Design and Art Direction (D&AD), formerly known as British Design and Art Direction, is a British educational organisation that was created in 1962 to promote excellence in design and advertising. Its main offices are in Spitalfields in London. I ...
Award for 'Digital Advertising/Web Films'
* April 2012, nominated for Andy Award for 'Agency Innovation'
* April 2012, won
Webby Award
The Webby Awards are awards for excellence on the Internet presented annually by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a judging body composed of over two thousand industry experts and technology innovators. Categories include ...
for 'Online Guerilla & Innovation'
* April 2012, nominated for three
Webby Awards
The Webby Awards are awards for excellence on the Internet presented annually by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a judging body composed of over two thousand industry experts and technology innovators. Categories include ...
under categories 'Viral', 'Experimental and Weird', and 'Viral Marketing',
* May 2012, won Bronze Clio Award for 'Self Promotion, Interactive'
* May 2012, won two One Show Interactive Awards 'Gold Pencils': for 'Best Use of Scocial Media' and 'Gold Pencil' for 'Interactive Advertising Self-Promotion'.
* May 2012, won
Art Directors Club
The Art Directors Club of New York is an organization for art directors in New York City. It was founded in 1920, and has grown as an industry group, promoting art directors' work through exhibitions and awards, including the annual DESI award for ...
'Silver Cube' award for 'Online Content'.
* May 2012, nominated for
Daytime Emmy Award
The Daytime Emmy Awards, or Daytime Emmys, are part of the extensive range of Emmy Awards for artistic and technical merit for the American television industry. Bestowed by the New York–based National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences ( ...
for 'New Approaches - Daytime Entertainment'.
* May 2012, nominated for four AICP Awards: 'Integrated Campaign', 'Website/Microsite', 'Cause Marketing', and 'Social'
:; Remote Control Tourist:
* 2013, won Favourite Website Awards 'site of the day'
* 2013, won Bronze Award for 'Technical Achievement' at
SXSW
South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, T ...
* 2014, won Gold Prix awards for 'Direct Content' and for 'Branded Content & Entertainment' at
Singapore
Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borderin ...
's Spikes Asia Festival
* 2014, won 'Best in Show' and two Gold Awards ('Interactive Film' and for 'Creative Innovation'), two Silver Awards ('Branded Content' and 'Digital Campaign'), and seven Bronze Awards in several 'film and video and digital' categories from the 'Australasian Writers and Art Directors Association'
* 2014, won
Webby Award
The Webby Awards are awards for excellence on the Internet presented annually by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a judging body composed of over two thousand industry experts and technology innovators. Categories include ...
for 'Best Social Media Campaign'
* 2014, won five 'Bronze Cyber Lions' awards at
Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity
The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity (formerly the International Advertising Festival) is a global event for those working in creative communications, advertising, and related fields. It is considered the largest gathering of the ...
.
* 2014, won 'The Innovation Award', and award for 'Most Effective Use of Content', as well as commendations 'Art Direction', 'Branded Content', 'Data Visualisation', and for 'Digital Website & Microsites' ADMA awards from Australian Creativity & Effectiveness Awards for Marketing, Media, & Advertising
* 2014, won Gold 'Best Content Creation Award' at C Squared Festival of Media
* 2014, won first place 'Innovation Award' from F.I.T.C.
* 2014, won 'Advertising Annual Award for Digital Advertising' from
Communication Arts
''Communication Arts'' is the largest international trade journal of visual communications.Au ...
* 2012, won 'Next Award', category 'Experimental' from
Association of Independent Commercial Producers
The Association of Independent Commercial Producers, or AICP, is an American not for profit organization that represents the interests of United States companies that specialize in commercial production. Its members work in various media—film, v ...