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Award winning director Stuart Douglas came into the industry having plied his trade as a photographer in the 90’s. As one half of the trendy photographic duo The Douglas Brothers, he, along with his older brother Andrew, carved a niche in the UK and US markets with their distinctive, moody portraits of celebrities, actors, musicians and authors – Daniel Day Lewis to Richard Gere, Kenneth Branagh to Giorgio Armani, Cindy Crawford to Bob Geldof.
Progressing from stills through to commercials via a series of films for the Adidas Atlanta Olympics campaign, his work still features a lot of sport based subjects. His ‘World Cup of Fans’ spot for Coca-Cola remains a crowd pleaser, as do those starring Prince Naseem Hamed and David Beckham. The Nike ‘Subway’ commercial featuring Freddie Ljunberg is a recent addition in the football catalogue, and he is the man behind a campaign for software giant EA sports, with their FIFA spot involving Thierry Henry, Ronaldinho and Alessandro del Piero. Steven Gerrard is the latest world class footballer to take stage in front of Douglas’ lens.
Describing his work as ‘photographic and people orientated’, he also tends to rely on capturing natural emotion and subtle performance, often utilizing real people rather than actors.
Regularly featured in major awards, many of his commercials have received accolades. ‘Kill your Speed’ for the road safety body DETR gained a silver arrow (along with the dubious accolade from the Daily Mirror as ‘the most shocking commercial ever made’) as did ‘Fatigue’ for the same client. The former also won gold at New York’s One Show. Sony Playstation’s UEFA ‘Big Ball’ spots, shot and directed by Douglas, picked up a coveted silver pencil from D&AD. Recent spots for Guinness and Carlsberg have also picked up several awards. Other notable recent clients include Pepsi, Pontiac, Saab and international banking giant UBS.
“The best job in the world” is how father of four Douglas describes his role as director. “I get to visit fantastic places and peoples and for a short period I’m immersed in their culture. It teaches you to respect others, their ways and beliefs – but also to appreciate what we have at home.”
Douglas’ first contact with racing came at 8 years old, when he was a regular Saturday night kid at the Rayleigh Rockets speedway meetings in his native Essex. His love of motorbikes later drew him into the world of British and World Superbikes where he became involved with the formation of GSE racing (later World Champions and current British Superbike Champions), and has seen him associated with many teams in the Superbike paddock, including Red Bull Ducati and Virgin Yamaha. Three decades after his first speedway encounters saw him chance across a meeting at Swindon, and the hit of the smell brought the unique excitement of speedway flooding back to him. He looked for a local team (having lost Rayleigh to property developers in the 70’), and found himself on the way back from British Superbikes dropping in at Arena Essex. He had found his new ‘home track’.
This season, under the guise of his promotional company Duggo7, he formed a stronger bond with the Hammers and took on the mantle of principle team sponsor in 2006.
In November 2006, Douglas assumed ownership of the Hammers and made changes, renaming the club the "Lakeside Hammers" and appointing former Eastbourne Eagles boss Jon Cook as his co-promoter and team manager.
Learn more about Stuart Douglas' work at www.niceshirtfilms.com
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