50/50 - Tomas Mankovsky

While most aspiring stars dream of seeing their name in neon lights, shots is happy to see its name in Tomas Mankovsky’s corner-shop collage, for this issue’s ident.

With no money or obvious location, Mankovsky and his producer James Breton stumbled across the perfect shop to act as the director’s canvas.

“James and I were cycling around and we found these shops,” recalls Mankovsky. “The shop in the middle specifically asked if they could be in the centre of shot. We filmed the ident during both day and night and then stuck them together to show the switch between light and dark.”

A few banana crates and other household bits and bobs later, Mankovsky successfully managed to spell ‘shots’, with a split screen illustrating both day and night, and the shoot was complete.

“We took a few shots in the morning, the afternoon and the evening and then there was not much need for post-production. It was just a case of picking the images and putting them together,” explains Mankovsky.

Currently signed to Blink, Mankovsky leapt into the world of directing following a four-year stint as a creative at London agency Fallon. While he still likes the agency environment, he’s treating the next few years as time-out to focus on his directing.

“I still like creative advertising but it’s not so fun to be in an agency at the moment in this climate,” he comments. “I can still use the creative insight that I gained while I was at Fallon here at Blink because I’m so used to advertising.”