Director Profile: Wayne McClammy

Making shorts with Sarah Silverman titled I’m Fucking Matt Damon sounds more like a party than a job and Wayne McClammy admits late-night comedy shows are a ‘blast’. But, as Iain Blair discovers, the director knows about hard work too, and has ads, TV, four films and even gaming on the go

Wayne McClammy doesn’t like doing interviews – so much so that, when he won a Primetime Emmy for the inspired song I’m Fucking Matt Damon (which he shared with Sarah Silverman and three others, and which spawned the viral hit I’m Fucking Ben Affleck), the director blew off all the press. “I just didn’t know what to say, especially as I really hate talking about myself,” he admits. “I just get nervous and I don’t like it. So it’s better to not even start.” With this in mind, what you are about to read can safely be filed under the rara avis category – the very first in-depth, freewheeling interview with the press-shy McClammy who, it happily turns out, is a big fan of shots and who, after several very large, neat vodkas to get him going (and it’s only 11 a.m.), won’t shut up.

We’re joking. After all, with a name like McClammy (“my ancestors were Scots-Irish,” he insists, as if that explains it), you’d better have a good sense of humour, along with the gift of the gab, and the comedy director has both in spades. And while the self-deprecating McClammy may be an even rarer avis in a town full of self-promoting gasbags who really don’t know when to shut up about their latest deal or project, the genial Texan with a sly wit and (an almost British) use of sarcasm has some great stories to tell.

As an award-winning director with Hungry Man – one of the top production companies in the world, with offices in Los Angeles (where McClammy’s based), London, New York, Rio and São Paolo, and a roster that includes Bryan Buckley, Kinka Usher and Jim Hosking – McClammy is one of the hottest names in the business thanks to such noteworthy spots as Hump Day, for Geico through The Martin Agency, Madden Season, for EA Games/Madden and Heat SF, and the sublime Man vs Machine, for Activision (Call Of Duty)/Mountain Dew and 72andSunny, along with campaigns for such A-list clients as Nike, Comcast and Skittles.

Just doing what Emilio does

It wasn’t always thus, though, for the ambitious southerner with zero Hollywood connections. “My family’s from all over the south, and growing up I’d always wanted to make movies and be somebody,” he says wryly. “But when you’re from the south, it’s just a pipe dream, really. Movies and Hollywood – they just don’t seem real.” But Hollywood reality intruded on his pipe dreams when he moved to Austin. “Weirdly enough, I was working at this hotel, I was 23, and Austin was just blowing up in terms of film, thanks to locals like Robert Rodriguez and Richard Linklater. Then Emilio Estevez came to town to shoot [and star in] this movie called The War at Home,” he recalls. “I got to know Emilio while he was staying at the hotel, and we hung out a lot together during the shoot.” After the film wrapped, McClammy had his epiphany; “I thought, ‘Well, if he can do it, I can do it’.”

Not one to waste a minute – or a sign from the gods of cinema, McClammy promptly “dropped everything” and, with some friends, set up an Airstream trailer with an edit bay and a bunch of early Canon digital cameras and got to work. Two years later, in 2002, he won an Audience Award in the narrative short category at the Austin Film Festival for Triple Threat, a self-fulfilling prophecy for the neophyte writer/editor/director.

He quickly parlayed that success into a live show pilot The Hyper Jackson Chamber, which comedy writers and stand-ups Bob Odenkirk and David Cross saw, “and they flew me out to LA, which was a big break,” he reports. “They’d done tons of stuff, like Saturday Night Live and The Ben Stiller Show, and they were really big supporters and helped me get established in town.” Through them, he met Jimmy Kimmel who was just starting his own late-night TV show, and McClammy was asked to do some short films for the show, shorts that quickly became hugely popular.

“That was a blast, especially for me as I grew up loving Letterman and all the late-night shows,” he says. “And to be right there at the birth of a late show was an amazing experience. Crazy days! Every night was a party, and it was just so much fun.” And the Hollywood dream-turned-reality only got better when McClammy met Sarah Silverman who was dating Kimmel at the time. “We became good friends, and I directed her show after that on Comedy Central for several seasons,” he notes. He also directed such TV movies as Big Night Of Stars in 2008 and, the following year, Boldly Going Nowhere. He recently shot another short with Silverman titled Sarah Silverman is Visited by Jesus Christ.

The hookup with Hungry Man came about after McClammy specifically asked his agent “to reach out and let them know I was a big fan of their team”. He reports that it was “a pretty quick match. My sensibilities meshed well with theirs, and it’s just a really creative, fun group to be a part of”.

At time of going to press, McClammy was starting another big campaign for Geico. “It’s an epic and a continuation of the Horror Movie spot we did recently. They’ll start rolling out in the new year,” he says. “And we did another Call Of Duty gamer campaign, and those are always fun as you’re blowing shit up. And those video game worlds are a blast to play in as they’re not real worlds, so you get to push things visually, and there’s more room to be edgier and have stronger jokes.”

Tellingly, though, while McClammy has his hands full with current projects in advertising, movies (he has four in development), TV and gaming, he doesn’t set himself any boundaries or try to focus on a specific area to the exclusion of others. “I’m one of those people who really loves doing it all, so my focus is good work – in whatever area,” he states. “I write movies, I shoot commercials, I do TV shows, and I just look for good work that really interests me, and there’s good work on all sides. In this diluted market that’s grown so rapidly over the past decade, with the explosion of the internet and social media, you have to be diversified I think. So I wake up every day looking for stuff that sounds challenging and intriguing – and that will hopefully make people laugh. That’s what drives me.”

For McClammy, his love of commercials and advertising “gradually evolved over the years. Growing up, you always had those great, memorable commercials that were so defining for an era, and to me they still can be. Some of the spots I’ve done over the past couple of years” – he cites Hump Day and Call of Duty [The Replacers and Man vs Machine] – “everyone knows. So from that perspective, it’s a lot of fun. And I care deeply when I do something, no matter what it is. I’m very invested in it being as good as it can possibly be, and I really enjoy doing commercials.”

He links that enjoyment back to his late night show roots with the Jimmy Kimmel Live! “The great part of doing that sort of TV is that every day is a new day,” he explains. “And everything is changing constantly, which is the fun part to me. It’s always evolving and moving forward, so from that perspective I love doing spots and trying a lot of different things.”

Everything is interesting, even if it’s shit

In terms of his overall influences, McClammy is equally catholic in his tastes, even if he seems reluctant to single out specific names. “I know people have favorite directors and very specific inspirations, but I’ve always been inspired by a wide range of people,” he comments. “I really enjoy playing in different genres, and there’s a dramatic side to me and a super-playful side, like most people, and I like playing with all those things and combining them.”

Press him a little harder and he says, “OK, people who haven’t yet seen Birdman [2014’s black comedy directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu] really should. It’s a truly amazing film, one of the best I’ve seen in a long time.” So Inarritu is an inspiration? “Definitely, but then so is Wes Anderson or Linklater,” he notes, “Look at Bottle Rocket [1996 crime comedy and Wes Anderson’s directorial debut]. Living in Austin at the time, it was so special, and to this day I still think the protagonist Dignan is one of the most original characters ever. [Co-writer and star] Owen Wilson was so brilliant in that movie. I wish we had more of those types of films today. And then there’s a classic like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid which is one of my favourite movies of all time. George Roy Hill was an amazing director. So I find that everyone is inspiring to some extent,” he adds. “And even when they’re bad, they’re inspiring you to not be bad,” he laughs. “I think everybody has something interesting – even if it’s shitty.”

As for his own style of shooting, McClammy says that he’s “pretty eclectic, and I think you’re now starting to see that there’s more room to play with styles in commercials. Before, style was really driven by the bigger, more visual spots – and they weren’t comedy spots. But now you’re starting to see a world that’s a little more cinematic and grounded, and you can have a lot of fun.” Indeed, if you check out his reel, it’s soon apparent that he’s “all over the place” (his own words) – and proudly so. “I like experimenting with all kinds of styles, and seeing what develops. It’s not so rigid anymore, in terms of what you can do, and the internet’s changed that a lot,” he says. “You can get away with more now, and the viral nature of my spots has helped too.” Talk about understatement. McClammy’s greatest hits, including Hump Day, have averaged well over 100 million hits a year – substantial numbers for ads and proof that the director has his finger on the pulse of America.

So what’s the secret of his success? McClammy puts it down partly to his total commitment to a concept and job. “Very rarely, if ever, do I do a spot for something I’m not a fan of,” he says. “It’d be very hard for me to take that on.”

The director, who’s shot several spots in Britain, including a big Microsoft campaign, and whose ads have played in the UK, was recently visiting Britain on holiday, but managed to find time to check out the latest spots on TV. “I wish we were a little more forward-thinking here in the States,” he says diplomatically. “I think you get away with far more in the UK and the spots can be much edgier. But the internet’s really changing the global culture, and it is the future of comedy. You’ve got to keep moving forward, and I think the UK has done a beautiful job in that context. I love the spots there.”

No kissing and no brown sandwiches

He says he’s always loved shooting in London, even when, for the Microsoft job, it had to double for Germany, France, Australia “and Texas, which isn’t easy to do there,” he points out. “But we tracked down this house outside London with a big deck and barbecue and backyard and it actually looked like Texas! I couldn’t believe it.”

McClammy also has fond memories of shooting No Kissing, a spot for the British Heart Foundation with Vinnie Jones (made for Grey London, it won several British Arrows). “It was a couple of years ago, it was so much fun to do, and the spot did really well – and ended up saving many lives,” he reports. “My grandfather died of a heart attack, so I had this personal interest in doing it, and with PSAs you can really make a difference if people are willing to be clever. A lot of people are afraid to be clever and of the backlash, but I feel it’s the only way you can move forward.” His only gripe about working in Britain? “Craft services,” he says. “I love bangers and mash, but every day? And those strange brown sandwiches everyone seems to love. I mean, what’s in them? I never did find out.”