NEWS
May 2007 - Paranoïd!
PARANOID U.S. SIGNS DIRECTOR NICOLE MCDONALD
HOLLYWOOD—May 9, 2007—
Los Angeles-based production company Paranoid U.S. has announced the addition of director Nicole McDonald to its roster, effective immediately. The announcement was made by the company’s partners and executive producers, Claude Letessier and Phillip Detchmendy, who will represent Nicole worldwide.
It's such a pleasure to announce that I will join Paranoïd Productions. A Los Angeles-based production company that will represent me worldwide. Check them out, they rock!
March 2007 - Una Favola
I've got a new short film that I have been working on since last year, it's called Una Favola, it is sort of a grown-up children's story. I've also made this new site here, to show off a couple of my films and commercial work, as I am now going to be working full time as a director/art director so this site will be my showreel. I've only put a few things here, but there is a bunch more on the way, stay tuned, and keep in touch!
SELECTED WORK
UNA FAVOLA[WROTE/DIRECTED]
A girl and her pony. Una Favola was filmed on the stage at Mass Art where I showed my first film more than ten years ago. This was a self-funded film and I filled many roles, including directing, writing, art directing fashion design, and even some illustrations. The voiceover was done by the most lovely Italian barber in Boston.
KRISTEN'S DAY[WROTE/DIRECTED]
I had the opportunity to do this spec piece a bit ago for a sportswear company. They were looking to capture a day in the life of a realistic active women. Shot and edited in 24 hours, I wanted to capture something that felt real and natural. Looking to texture, light, and color to convey the beauty of her world and her role in it.
TATTOOED WOMAN (excerpt)[WROTE/DIRECTED]
Please put your 3D glasses on! This is an experiment using dual-camera stereoscopic techniques. Filmed in my studio one afternoon, it was initially used as the backdrop to a show. To create an even greater sense of disorientation it is shot through the reflection of an antique silver mirror. I'm excited with the results and i am continuing my experiments.
AXE VICE (website excerpt)[CO-WROTE/DIRECTED/CREATIVE DIRECTION]
This global campaign's strategy was to create an interactive film where the user had to solve crimes committed by nice girls mysteriously turned naughty. The film begins at the crime scene and the user works their way back collecting clues to the original source (Axe Vice). The challenge was to create a large and lavish noir themed online film while keeping the download time fast, the interactions engaging, and the content pan-cultural & age-appropriate. site url
MILWAUKEE'S BEST BEER CANNON[CO-DIRECTED/ART DIRECTION]
This is the Awesome Cannon Montage, which is a collection of the explosions in a 10-video series for Milwaukee's Best Light. Meant to showcase the sheer awesome manliness of the beer, an air powered cannon was made that shot beer cans at high velocity. Filmed with a 4,000fps military camera, the series was a youtube hit with over 6 million views, and also made it on CNN and CMT as news and legitimate content. More videos and things on the milbestlight.com website.
DOPPELHERZ (excerpt)[CO-WROTE/DIRECTED/ART DIRECTION]
Having seen some of my personal artwork through his then-girlfriend Dita Von Teese, Marilyn Manson contacted me and I began collaborating on the art direction for his new album and tour. Doppelherz is one of the projects we created together. A psychedelic trip through the world of Manson, it was filmed in the Hollywood hills and edited in a hotel room at the Sunset Marquis. The film was included as a bonus DVD with his album Grotesque Burlesque and is now a sought-after cult film.
VW SNAPSHOTS (excerpt)[CO-WROTE/AGENCY ART DIRECTION]
This is one of the many intergrated campaigns I worked on for Volkswagen at Arnold Worldwide. This piece was created to promote and unveil the New Beetle Convertible. Shot by photographer Bill Cash, we created this animation from thousands of still images. It was a complete blast from beginning to end and was a very popular website for Volkswagen.
STORY OF BEN[CO-WROTE/AGENCY ART DIRECTION]
Volkswagen New Jetta. For some people it’s the perfect fit. What do you do when a carmaker slaps some chrome on an old model and calls it new? Well with The Story of Ben, Winner of the AICP award for Art Direction, we tell the tale of a boy not brought down by his differences but rather inspired by them.
GALLERY
MAKING OF UNA FAVOLA[PHOTOS BY OLIVIA GATTI & BENJAMIN PALMER]
Here is a photo set of the Una Favola shoot, including some sketches for my initial costume designs, some shots of us putting about 800 pounds of dirt on a theater stage, some nice pictures of everyone that worked really hard on the shoot, and one of my brother pretending to be a dead pony so we could test the lights.
UNA FAVOLA BOOK[DESIGN BY NICOLE/PHOTOS BY OLIVIA GATTI]
I made a limited run of a storybook to go along with Una Favola, which has some gorgeous stills by Olivia Gatti from the shoot, the full text of the story, and some other stills from the shoot taken by various people. If you missed out on the book, you can have the next best thing, some low resolution jpegs.
PORTFOLIO[VARIOUS THINGS BY NICOLE]
Here are some random other things I have done. There are a few bits of illustration and commercial design, some sculpture and costume design, stills from a few art films, photo shoots, live performances, my studio, and a picture of me on mtv2. Hot.
HISTORICAL
HOW TO MAKE A VAMPIRE FILM[WROTE/DIRECTED]
I made a series of instructional films in 2000/2001, this one teaches the fine art of making a vampire film. Before I made this I had never seen a vampire movie all the way through until I watched 8 films in one weekend. They all go exactly like this one. The underground scenes were shot in the basement of my building, which used to be the scariest place ever, now its just boring storage units. Sad!
HOW TO MAKE MACARONI[WROTE/DIRECTED]
How to Make Macaroni by Federico Fellini. A weekend shoot in Boston in 2001, this is my pasta-filled homage to the Master Fellini. The film features a guest appearance by bed-ridden musician Chris Ewen, Bubba as the strong man, and tiny clocks made from stickers & nickels. I still have some macaroni in my filing cabinet.
NICOLE
Born in Massachusetts, Nicole McDonald was born in the hyper-competitive world of junior women’s dirt bike racing. She gave it all up to attend the Massachusetts College of Art’s unique School for Interrelated Media. After SIM, Nicole spent a few years in Europe showing her work at several major festivals, including Bandits-Mages in Bourges, France.
She returned to the U.S. and expanded her horizons to the video game industry. Fascinated by the possibilities, she spent several years doing 3D modeling and art direction for 3DFX and Looking Glass Studios.
Nicole then took a job at Arnold Worldwide and spent five years as an Art Director on the Volkswagen brand. She was responsible for many of VW’s flagship online and integrated campaigns, as well as many print and broadcast pieces. Her work has won awards at the One Show, London International Awards, Mobius, AICP, Andy’s, Clio’s and Webby’s among others. It has been featured in Communication Arts and been recognized by Adweek.
Since leaving Arnold, she’s worked in advertising as a freelance creative director. She co-wrote, directed and creative directed the Axe Vice website for BBH. She co-directed the MilBest cannon videos that received over six million views on YouTube. She co-wrote and directed Marilyn Manson’s Doppelherz film, and she played a part of the art direction of his world tour. She has directed a number of short films including Una Favola and Tattooed Woman (in Stereoscopic 3D).
Contact: hello@nicolemcdonald.com