First Cut Award runner-up Yael Staav is looking for great ideas to shoot. With a background in music video production, some strong early work and a First Cut nod to her credit, the young director appears poised for a big second year in the industry.

Since signing with untitled earlier this year, she has shot a number of well-received PSAs for Covenant House through Taxi, as well as four 15-second Holsten non-alcoholic beer ads for Downtown Partners. She says she enjoyed both experiences because of the quality of the ideas presented to her.

‘It’s not easy to find boards with really strong ideas,’ she says. ‘I was so lucky to get [the Covenant House work] as my first spots. Those were really strong ideas and there was a lot of room for play and unconventional commercial-making in them.’

Shot convincingly like clips from a reality TV show, the actors in her Covenant House spots didn’t know the concept going into the shoot. Staav says she was able to surprise the talent with the direction of the spots, resulting (in one case especially) in some disturbingly suggestive work that sticks with viewers long after.

Staav studied new media at Ryerson University. While there, she began taking pictures of musical artists Hayden and others, which led to music video opportunities. Staav presented her music video reel to untitled executive producer James Davis last spring, hoping, at best, that he’d look at it and offer some early career advice.

‘I really respected the work coming out of there,’ she says. ‘My reel landed on his desk at the right time. It almost feels fluky to me. I just wanted to know if I was in the right field.’

Staav has been told by friends and colleagues that there is a certain style to her music video work that sets her clips apart – a ‘stamp,’ she calls it. This isn’t apparent in her early commercial work. She says it’s far too early in her career to declare a certain spot style, but does say that having cut her teeth doing videos has made her a stronger commercial director, and better able to manage low budgets.

‘I find myself almost curbing my ideas because I’m so used to not having money to work with,’ says Staav. ‘It’s a new and exciting process for me to work with people who are willing to spend a little bit of money to get the idea. With videos your idea is constantly being compromised because of time, money or an artist’s schedule. The most exciting thing about coming into commercials for me is that people are excited about the idea and willing to go the extra mile to get an idea across.’

The judges seem equally excited about Staav.

One said Staav’s reel is ‘solid… with strong ideas. No doubt [she] worked within very limited budget and time.’

‘I like the whole campaign for Covenant House,’ said another. ‘The realism for street life came through strongly. Great casting and talent direction.’

A lot of judges commented that Staav’s talent direction is excellent, particularly in the Covenant House work.

One final judge gave her reel a glowing review.

‘Great creative always helps,’ said the judge. ‘Practically all of the spots on this director’s reel were handled perfectly. She is going to be very busy very soon.’