On The Ninth Day Of Christmas Peppergrain Gave To Me… an exclusive with a director who went to Brunel uni (I’m sorry I couldn’t find a better rhyme, forgive me)
Hello Everybody, You may have seen our post about Reed’s competition for a TV advert to be shown in the New Year, well we caught up with Jabril Muse who created the advert we featured in the post, to find out a bit more.
Jabril’s advert for the competition is called ‘Condition‘ and features several workers suffering from a Monday-syndrome, something the east London director can relate to. “I used to work in the city as a businness analyst and hated my job, and then last year I quit and started making films” says Jabril, who says he ‘fell’ into becoming a city slicker, as it was a natural progression after studying computer science at Brunel university, even though he had always harboured a passion for film.
“When I quit my job, I became really interested in advertising so wanted to get into that, and my first ever project was a short film for a Reed competition last year, which won the peoples choice award. Before that I had never considered directing, I always saw myself more as a producer but after making that first short, and winning an award, I became obsessed with it ” says Jabril, who took part in this years competition after being contacted by Reed, following his tremendous success with them last year.
Since the first project for Reed, Jabril has been working hard, directing two short films and entering advertising competitions through Mofilms – a company that facilitates video contests for big brands- winning a prize for his commercial for American telecoms giant AT&T and even having the honour of one of his commercials for Campbells soup being picked up to go to air! “They wanted to put the ad on Canadian TV but unfortuneately the actress in the video wouldn’t give her consent” he says, “obviously I was disappointed but disappointment gives me drive. I’m a relentless kind of person and I work so hard I haven’t really had the time to stop and feel sad, the anger just spurs me on to do better.”
Jabrils overall plan is to go into feature films, and he would love to own an advertising company and then, a studio. “I want to direct smart, big-budget thrillers” he says, “I want to create films that combine the plot of a drama with the mass appeal of a blockbuster. Before that though, I want to direct around 200 TV commercials for two reasons; firstly its a more stable market and secondly it allows me to take the time to hone my craft, perfect my skills and build up a crew.”
Right now the director he most admires is Clint Eastwood simply because “he’s not loud, he’s just precise” and he is working on a few ideas for brands he wants to approach, but really wants to create an advert for a charity such as the NSPCC. It seems crazy that a 27-year-old ex-city worker could’ve had so much success in such a creative field when the sterotype of men in suits is more ‘stuffy’ than ‘artistically sensitive’, and it becomes even more staggering when you consider Jabril has been in the game for just a year. At Peppergrain we love hard workers, especially ones who are as talented as Jabril, so from all of us, Good Luck with the competition and we are looking forward to seeing all the rest you have in store.
You can check out Jabril’s work on his Vimeo channel and don’t forget to vote for Jabril in the reed competition right here.
Monica Rahman
