Russell BATES c/o Madam

Additional Info // about Russell BATES

Vita
Russell Bates is a honey bartering urban beekeeper, next are the chickens. With an innate instinct for casting and performance, comedy, timing, spontaneity, wit and perversity, Russell was always destined to work with eccentric and perverse realism in film. Expertly called upon by international brands to create superbly natural comedy performance, Russell is one of the best comedy directors working in advertising today.

Russell began his career directing music videos with Sub Pop Records (the Seattle record label famous for launching Nirvana and Soundgarden.) There he directed videos for artists including Everclear and The Lemonheads. Tapping into his flair for comedy, Russell directed his first comedic short film for the VH1 Fashion Awards – starring Ben Stiller as the male model Derek Zoolander (which Stiller later developed into a feature film).

Following the amazing response to Zoolander, Russell went on to direct a number of satirical short films for MTV and Comedy Central. His parody of Castaway, and his short about President Bush’s speechwriter Harlan McCrainey were hugely successful. These films were the start of his technique of intercutting existing footage with live action, a style that he has been called upon to recreate for
subsequent films with Queen Latifah.

Russell has worked internationally for brands such as Mars, L’Oreal, Michelob, TMobile, Tic Tac, Chevrolet, Rolling Rock and Motorola where his signature deadpan, sometimes dark humour has been put to great commercial expression both in the UK and US.