
How to Shoot 8 Episodes in 4 Days With 155 People | Ep 15 w/ Matt Taylor
The Director & The D.O.PShow Notes
Matt Taylor — founder of Milkmoney, now an agency EP in branded entertainment — breaks down Rivals, a TV series funded and driven by Rexona that pitted Australia's top athletes across codes against each other on Hamilton Island. Matt takes us inside brand-created entertainment: how you balance the "value exchange" so it's neither eight half-hour TVCs nor an ROI-free show, why flying athletes to an island beat any stadium, and how you shoot eight episodes in a four-day window with 155 people and six camera units. Then the personal stuff: running an independent production company ("it's like riding a lion"), selling Milkmoney, and becoming a grip assistant at 50 during his non-compete. Plus Matt turns the tables with a great question — where's the opportunity in all this industry chaos? — and Gear Chat on the Cadrage / Sun Seeker update. 00:20 The loud shirt 05:32 The Breakdown: Rivals 12:03 The value exchange 26:32 The athletes and the 4-day window 32:42 Why Australian TV is all FX6 38:12 Running a company: "riding a lion" 39:50 Selling up and becoming a grip at 50 46:58 Gear Chat 🎙️ New episodes weekly.#thedirectorandthedop #brandedentertainment #advertising #commercialfilm
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In an age where everyone's reaching for AI, director Andrew Seaton (Mint Films) built a monster by hand. He breaks down ResMed "Lossy" — a lack-of-sleep puppet brought to life with a hand puppeteer and mechanical eyes instead of VFX, and why the tangible, practical approach gave it a charm no prompt could.Andrew takes us through finding puppeteer Rob Cook, ADR-ing a puppet into cute international gibberish, and the on-set magic of grown adults talking to the puppet instead of the man inside it. Then the Mint Films story, and a genuinely useful conversation on directing: decision fatigue, directing athletes vs actors, and using callbacks as rehearsals.Plus What We Watch: a Jamiroquai "Virtual Insanity" redo, a sound-design masterclass, and a love letter to Gary Oldman in Slow Horses.00:20 Intro 06:00 The Breakdown: ResMed "Lossy"7:37 Why a puppet instead of VFX24:48 Everyone talked to the puppet32:20 On directing: decision fatigue and talent55:00 What We Watch🎙️ New episodes weekly.#thedirectorandthedop #commercialfilm #puppetry #directing
Toby Morris (Cousin) is one of the most in-demand directors in the region, with a singular, playful visual style. He breaks down his Kia Seltos spot — shot with two full crews running simultaneously, a solo-built CG fly-through of Sydney's Town Hall, and a director's-cut approach of jamming the best gags out in the edit. Then the bigger story: Toby's just-finished independent feature "Cooee," a passion project a decade in the making that a cancer diagnosis finally forced into being — and a genuinely moving conversation with Liam, a survivor himself, about why it takes a wake-up call to pull the trigger on the thing you keep putting off. Plus a Gear Chat eulogy for Miller — the Sydney brand that invented the fluid-head tripod in 1946 and just closed its doors. 00:21 Intro 05:12 The Breakdown: Kia Seltos 07:37 Shooting with two full crews at once 29:34 "It's such a dumb job" 31:48 Cooee: the feature, and finishing what you start 45:07 Gear Chat: farewell to Miller tripods 🎙️ New episodes weekly.#thedirectorandthedop #commercialfilm #directing #filmmaking
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Elliot Constable just won ABC's Race Around the World — the rebooted format that drops six filmmakers into ten countries and makes them research, shoot, edit and star in a film a week, completely solo. We met Elliot on a Destination NSW shoot; here he walks us through the near-impossible logistics, the stories (Moldova, Svalbard's polar bears, a Brazilian favela homage to City of God), and the all-time production disaster — a thorn bush destroying his camera two days before a rhino de-horning shoot, and the snake farm 2.5 hours away that saved him. Plus: the strange new pressure of having to be the personality, not just make the work; why the one thing he'd spend money on wasn't gear but someone to do his receipts; and the honest truth about online criticism. Then Hot Takes — including the first live one in the show's history. 00:18 Our own overseas near-death stories 07:50 Winning Race Around the World 18:18 How the show actually works 31:30 Being the personality, not just the filmmaker30:30 The broken camera and the snake farm 1:01:45 Hot Takes (first-ever live one) 🎙️ New episodes weekly.#thedirectorandthedop #filmmaking #racearoundtheworld #documentary