Catapult Commercials

Jonathan Finnigan

admin — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 11:55:44 +0000

After graduating with a degree in graphic design from the London College of Printing in 1989, Jonathan started his professional directing career working for an event production company in London.
In 1994 he moved into television broadcast at Star TV in Hong Kong and as director of Network Production Services he wrote and directed some of Star’s biggest promotional campaigns throughout the region over a period of seven years in which he won fifteen awards at Promax International.
Based in Singapore, Jonathan has extensive experience shooting all over the Asian region and now works as a freelance commercials director in South East Asia, focusing on promotional campaigns with agencies including Saatchi & Saatchi, Leo Burnett, Dentsu, Ogilvy, Grey, Lowe, Bates, BBDO and J Walter Thompson.
Recognised as an outstanding documentary filmmaker, Jonathan directed and produced the highly successful and award winning ‘Marco Polo – The China Mystery Revealed’ series for National Geographic – rated as the 13th most popular documentary since National Geographic began.
Jonathan’s production of ‘Treasure Fleet’ filmed in 13 countries across Asia, Africa and the Middle East, chronicled the life voyages of the Ming dynasty admiral, Zheng He, and was aired on National Geographic Channel worldwide, winning best documentary at the New York film Festival.
Says Jonathan about the challenge of making TV commercials: “There’s the discipline of telling a story in 30 seconds and in delivering a really good film that both does justice to the concept and answers the brief. And if you’ve done your job as the director, you’ve added insight and execution that brings the spot to life beyond what the client expected”.

McDonalds: Because Of You

Nat Geographic: I See Hong Kong

Unilever: Chain Stores

World Cup 1999: Dreams

Bango: Father and Son

Bango: Running Vendor

Biore: Market

HSBC: Name

Marthinus Lamprecht

admin — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 16:10:01 +0000

Marthinus has won various awards for his short films both for Directing and Writing, among them the Special Jury Prize at the Durban International Film Festival for “The Strike” …’for telling a socially relevant story and providing an emotionally balanced take on a historically important event.’

He has directed music videos for EMI Records, Sting Music and worked with many celebrities such as Leon Schuster, Albert De Wet, Sorina Erasmus (Flooz) and Christina Storm.

Marthinus worked in Los Angeles at global powerhouse Anonymous Content as an assistant to Directors Mark Romanek, Jonas Akerlund, Samuel Bayer, David Slade and observed the works in progress by David Fincher, Guy Ritchi and Alejandro Ganzales Inarritu.

His Spec Spots certainly have been mistaken for Broadcasted execution and one got a short-listing nod at the 2010 Cannes Mofilm festival.

Narrative drives all his projects, his classical approach enables him to communicate with various audiences on a personal level.

Marthinus is excited to be back in South Africa and we are happy to have him onboard the Catapult team.

Friskies Bag

admin — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 11:14:34 +0000

Client: N/A
Agency: N/A

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Blackberry

admin — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 14:16:50 +0000

Client: RIM
Agency: Leo Burnette

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Ricoffy

admin — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 19:04:24 +0000

Client: Nestle’
Agency: McCann Group

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Drivers Test

admin — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 15:36:38 +0000

Client:
Agency:

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Ostrich

admin — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 11:52:14 +0000

Client: Cadbury
Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi
In July 2009 I was sent the original script for Cadbury ‘Ostrich’. It had come to me through a contact of Glen’s in London, someone who knew it was just the sort of thing I love doing.
At that time I had no idea who the client was, there was no product shown, the script didn’t even have a title, but I could tell it was great idea, and in an industry where great ideas have become a rare commodity I was immediately hooked.
When I discovered the film was to be 90’ long and was the next in the ‘Glass and Half Full Productions’ series, which began with ‘Gorilla’ I was over the moon – opportunities to direct a film like this come along once or twice in a career (if you’re lucky).
As to whether the finished film will be as fondly remembered as its predecessors – only time will tell, but the early signs are good. The shooting process went like a dream and the performances and production values are already looking great, a couple of weeks of post production will finish what has been an incredible journey. Watch this space…

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Model Behavior

admin — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 15:27:49 +0000

Client: DSTV
Agency: Studio Zoo

Client run a series of promo’s every year to promote certain of their channels.
This was to encourage viewers to rather stay at home and watch their array of bouquets offered across various price options(it can get expensive out there in a depressed market) but keep it amusing and real.
Good direction and casting helped bring it home and the spot took home an orchid in March 2010. Your thoughts?

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Tongue

admin — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 15:26:10 +0000

Client: Aquelle
Agency: TBWA Durban
The brief from the creatives was to keep it real and avoid the gross factor as far as the tongue went. The only way to do this was through good casting and a series of tests at BFX led by Shaun Froneman. Pretty tough to determine firstly what a tongue extended to that magnitude should look like, and secondly to be convincing and lighthearted. Andrew Trail found a great piece of music and Agency and client were ecstatic with the end result. Jump on the blog and give us your thoughts.

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Jan-Hendrik Beetge

admin — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 10:20:05 +0000

Jan-Hendrik began his career writing and directing short films, winning multiple local and international awards for his poignant work ‘Triomfeer’ in 2001. He then worked as a successful TV commercial writer and director at several top production companies before joining Catapult Commercials in 2008.
A natural storyteller and talented artist, Jan-Hendrik tends towards a big, cinematic feel in his work. His strengths lie in his strong character development combined with bold and unique cinematic visuals, born out of the simplicity of stills photography.
Describing his style as ‘Cinephotographic Narrative’, Jan-Hendrik draws inspiration from such luminaries as David Fincher, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Christopher Nolan, Paul Thomas Anderson, Sam Mendes and Andrei Zvyagintsev amongst others.
Pursuing his passion for long form narrative in between making commercials, Jan-Hendrik recently completed his short film ‘The Abyss Boys’.
A genuine communicator with a keen eye for detail, Jan-Hendrik believes that:

“With skill, passion and commitment it is possible to take commercial film making to a whole new level“.

Blackberry: Siya

Ricoffy: Deliver Man

Isuzu: Oom Org

Nokia: Win Or Lose

Veet: Poolside

Veet: Cosmo

Avis: Middle Of Nowhere