Established commercial directors are the subject of this regular feature. Each issue we will profile their careers, accomplishments and the ideas that propel them to new advertising heights.

Big Films director Kari Skogland has undergone what she calls a ‘career evolution’ in her nearly 20 years in the business. In the mid-’80s, Skogland started a commercial editing company, The Editors, which later became The Daily Post. In the early ’90s, she stopped editing in favor of opening up her own commercial production company, Skogland Films.

Despite running her own shop, Skogland cut her teeth as a director helming music videos at Champagne Pictures. ‘I did a couple of music videos that, oddly enough, my commercial clients recognized. And they didn’t even know I had done them. And then, sure enough, they gave me a commercial for Dentyne,’ she says.

Even as Skogland’s commercial career was taking off, she knew ‘in the future [her] world would include features and documentaries.’ The young entrepreneur opened a development side at Skogland Films to help pursue this dream.

In the mid-’90s, Skogland folded her company into Partners’, which, at the time, supported the development side of her company along with the commercial work.

Skogland describes her directing style as ‘provocative.’ In commercials specifically, she feels people like her human touch.

‘It’s slice-of-life stories, which makes sense. As a feature director, that’s what I do – tell stories. And they like me for my work with children, which is also about ‘human touch.’ ‘

Skogland, a rare female commercial director, points out that ‘while in the commercial arena I do very soft, touching moments, or family moments, on the feature side I do pretty hard-ass action thrillers.’

Apparently, this ‘hard-ass’ style marked Skogland’s early forays into spot helming, too. ‘I did race car commercials, beer commercials – all the masculine domain stuff,’ she says. Although Skogland’s recent commercial work has a softer approach, she continues exploring ‘our masculine side as a human race’ in her feature work.

Being a female director is not so lonely anymore, Skogland says. ‘The marketplace has really changed over the last few years and I don’t feel so isolated. I feel there are a lot of females making the move and doing well.’

Ever ambitious, Skogland cut her commercial days back to concentrate on her feature work. It is this balance that prompted her in May to join The Big Film Company, which had unofficially repped her for a year and a half prior. ‘It was the perfect place to go because they understand that I will ‘gap out’ for a few months. Then I will be available for a few months. I’m a bit of a different animal for them now, because I’m not a traditional commercial director and probably won’t have a traditional commercial reel,’ she says.

Skogland just completed directing a ‘very political, hard-ass film’ that she also wrote. Liberty Stands Still stars Wesley Snipes, Linda Fiorentino and Oliver Platt. ‘Wesley is a real actor in it,’ she says.

Her accomplishments as a feature director (The Courage to Love, The Size of Watermelons, Zebra Lounge, Men With Guns) have played a huge role in the evolution of her spot directing style. ‘I bring that sensibility, my storytelling sensibility and my filmmaker’s ability, to commercials. I wanted to move on intellectually and stylistically. My writing and feature side has forced me to think differently as a filmmaker.’

The Canadian helmer, who does not direct spots in the U.S. but does do some long form in Canada, is excited about her transforming career.

‘There is some comfort and excitement at being able to feel the confidence of the body of your work starting to add up to something,’ she says. *