Chris Bretz

Chris Bretz is what we refer to as a “triple threat”, he can write, direct and edit.

In general what drives me, and why I love what I do, is when I’m helping an audience feel a message, not just understand it.  Changing people’s behaviour, getting them to do something different, or choose your brand, is difficult. Lives are busy and attention is at an all-time premium. The quickest way to influence behaviour is to connect emotionally, and it’s that intersection between brand truth and real human emotion that I am interested in.

I look for genuine performances from my talent. It’s important that it feels real to me, no matter how absurd the context. If it’s humour, the audience should be in on the joke without resorting to corny / forced performance.

I find humans embue emotion into the smallest gesture or detail in a scene, so I like to find those moments to piece together a visual story. Music is the soul of any film so I put heavy emphasis on finding the right track for my work. Finally, beauty is incredibly important to me, people respond to beautiful imagery. I try to make my films feel cinematic.

I love people, so I’m comfortable directing kids or adults, real people or talent (I prefer real people over talent sometimes for the authenticity you can get with the right priming) – Chris Bretz.