Exit signs Jamie Rafn, director of BBH + Johnnie Walker’s ‘The Man Who Walked Around the World’

Exit has announced the addition of director, Jamie Rafn, to its AUNZ roster.

Rafn is the kind of storyteller who holds people’s attention in the palm of his hands, often to deliver a surprise at the end that makes the story linger in a person’s head and emotions. His brilliantly observed scenarios get their power from an intelligent use of humour, both visually and with dialogue.

Says Rafn: “I like telling a good story and whether it makes someone tear up at the end or makes them laugh I don’t really mind. I like having an effect on an audience. If you can take the audience down one little road and then blindside them but leave them satisfied, that’s a nice enjoyable emotional experience. If I get to do that, it’s a lot of fun for me and hopefully the audience as well.”

Rafn came to directing from an unexpected place. He was studying law at Oxford but filmmaking was a passion and law was very much an afterthought, he admits. He began directing plays at uni, which fuelled the fire. Then he started dating an actress who was at RADA. She knew he was obsessed with film and told him about a weekend film course, which he loved. Law went from an afterthought to a non-starter.

His career plan was now based on the idea that “if you want to be a filmmaker just go and do it”. Rafn made his first film, “a ridiculously ambitious thriller”, he says, with every penny he had in his savings, £5,000. He sold it to the Sundance Channel in the US, which recouped his losses several times over. Then a friend introduced him to a commercials director.

Says Rafn: “I had no idea there was such a thing. It had never occurred to me who made commercials. I went to meet this guy. He had a really nice office on Wardour Street in London and it seemed very swanky compared to how broke I was. He showed me a showreel full of commercials and said the thing that had got him started was a short film he had made. So I thought, ‘Oh I should make a short film and get some means of making a living’.”

That film, “She Loves Me She Loves Me Not”, was featured in the 2006 Saatchi and Saatchi New Director Showcase and won him representation at HLA. Rafn began building his name as an up-and-coming commercials director until “The Man Who Walked Around the World” for BBH London and Johnnie Walker turned him into an established director of note.

The six-minute film was shot in a single take and originally intended for corporate presentations only. The film had tested Rafn’s creativity, ingenuity and resilience. The props had to be set in the right places for the monologue without using Carlyle’s reading and the project was put into doubt for a year because of a timing clash. But when it was finally released, the film achieved worldwide success, winning a Gold Lions at Cannes for Internet Film, as well as awards at Epica, Mobius and Kinsale Sharks.

More recently, Rafn has won a number of awards directing commercials for the American Family Insurance (APA Collection), Vorwerk (LIA Silver), Toyota (Clio Silver) and Volvo (Cannes Lion Grand Prix).

He met Exit while directing a Visa campaign in New Zealand with executive producer, Declan Cahill, for the World Cup.

Says Rafn: “I thought then that when I decide to deglobalise, my first port of call was always going to be with people I’d worked with before that I liked and trusted and knew were good. Exit has a fantastic reputation with some amazing directors, so it made sense to give them a call.”

Adds Cahill: “Jamie is one of those directors who is a real pleasure to work with. The Exit roster is predominantly storytelling and Jamie fits into this hand in glove. His ability to take an audience on a journey and hold their attention is obvious from his body of work. The old cliché is that great cast are crucial and they are of course, but equally important is the ability to get out of them, what you are aspiring to achieve. Jamie does this with aplomb.  We are pleased and proud to have him sign with Exit.”

View Jamie Rafn’s reel here.

For enquiries contact Declan Cahill, +64 21 445 592 or  declan@exitfilms.com, or Leah Churchill-Brown, +61 2 8755 3755 or leah@exitfilms.com.