Into the Library with Karien Cherry
Born in Malawi and raised in Zimbabwe, Karien Cherry was a theatre performer across the world before landing in LA and deciding that she wanted to be behind the camera. Returning to Africa, Karien went to film school and developed her style, from which she would go on to create a wide variety of work ranging from comedy to drama, but all through her unique filmmaking lens.
Now based in Cape Town, Karien’s unique style was first recognised via a Cannes Young Directors Award shortlist nomination, then a Gold at Ciclope, before becoming the only non-US shortlister for Advertising Excellence at the AICP awards. In 2021 she became the first woman to direct for Heineken and has since been working on clients such as KFC, Google, New Balance, and Chicken Licken, to name but a few.
Reflecting on the work she’s about to share, Karien says, “What a throwback. It’s amazing to look back over this work and realise how many of the jobs that shaped me as a director and shaped my career were jobs that someone else turned down, or no one thought were possible, where we just believed in the idea and seized the opportunity! It teaches you to trust your gut and to trust your instinctive reaction to a brief. And you develop the intuition of how to creatively serve the idea.”
And with that, she takes LBB’s Nisna Mahtani into the library.
Chicken Licken - Gone With The Wings
Chicken Licken - Everyone’s Talking About It
Chicken Licken - War
My favourite piece of work is this wacky campaign for the South African brand Chicken Licken, about a guy who wakes up starving and channel hops… For context, this brand is the career-changing ‘holy grail’ of South African advertising - big ideas and a legendary agency/client relationship known for their support of a director’s vision. It was the big break I needed, and I was on my way to the US for a Netflix series when I heard I was the wild card fourth director on the pitch - I cancelled my flight immediately.
It was a dream brief - a solid concept that relied on the filmmaking craft to elevate the idea. In addition to the TV spot, the guys wanted to build an interactive microsite where viewers could surf the channels themselves – which meant shooting each genre as its own full film. So that was super exciting - 12 films over a four-day shoot!
I loved the nonsensical performance demands – the actors and I literally rewrote the dialogue for each scene, then replaced the words with the ‘chicken dialogue’. It was so fun to be able to pursue ideas purely for their entertainment value as we created the 12 different worlds. We shot a hilarious Nollywood scene on VHS, finishing it off with really bad lo-fi visual effects, and even recreated a famous scene from a local soapie - building an exact replica of the set, matching the edit shot for shot, and working with the original soapie cast. The entire process was wild fun and viewers went mad for it.
Heineken - Perfect Match
I’m a green-blooded South African, so they had me at rugby! My Heineken job was my first pitch after landing my UK representation and I was determined to get the proverbial ball rolling.
I love comedy that tells the truth about what it’s like to be human. As they say, drama helps us dream about who we can be, but it’s the comedy genre that helps us live with who we are - or who our partner is! So, I knew we could throw a lot of fun little moments in there.
I’m pretty proud of the fact that the beer tap made it through the edit - it’s a really childish move, but one that any beer drinking sports fan has been subjected to, and for a premium brand like Heineken to embrace the levity of that moment was refreshing. As an aside, I have never felt more respected as a director than by the agency and client teams on this job - it was a real show of how good the process can be. When we get to do good work with good people it really is one of the best gigs around. Interestingly, the soundtrack took a turn at Meatloaf (‘I would do anything for Love’) before landing on ‘Tainted Love’ from Softcell.
South African Breweries - Dream Big
I loved this job for its honesty and simplicity. There’s so much work out there which feels convoluted and gimmicky and it was a breath of fresh air to be allowed to practice some restraint. South Africa is going through an increasingly tough time and it’s hard to stay hopeful when you’re living in near-constant rolling blackouts. That last scene hit home for a lot of people, and I think it’s because it speaks to a future we all want for our country. The frustration is that we all know it’s entirely possible.
Cell C - Her Story
This job presented the opportunity for a more poetic piece of visual storytelling. I enjoyed the change in gears both tonally and visually, but the stand-out experience was working with the lead. A well-known South African rapper, I met her a few years before and had been struck by her presence, and knew I’d put her in something one day. And although she’d never acted on screen, I knew immediately that she’d be right for the role.
She jumped right in, committing so bravely. We worked together for a few weeks before the shoot and her transformation on screen was incredible - not even the crew recognised her. It’s a real lesson; as directors, our decisions influence people’s paths - whether that’s casting someone in a new light or giving a crew member the chance to step into a different role. And it’s a responsibility that can also be hugely rewarding. It’s amazing to see how many of my closest personal relationships have come from my work.
New Balance – Baby vs Dale Steyn
This was my first ever piece of commercial work. I had met the agency producer the week or so before when I had been pulled into a last-minute job shooting a behind the scenes video on another commercial. She reached out about this crazy idea they had, that I loved, and I jumped on board. We shot this for basically no money, in the creative director’s house, with his kid, over one day with two cameras. And then got a YDA shortlist.
It was right at the point where the ideas of ‘unscripted’ and ‘digital branded content’ were exploding and the whole industry was trying to figure out these new buzzwords - how they worked and what they meant. I wasn’t thinking about awards or making new kinds of content, I just wanted to tell a good story and do good work. And I was willing to go wherever I needed to go in order to do that.
KFC - Rolling
The viral success of KFC ‘Rolling’ shaped my early career in that it opened many doors for me. A micro-budget, crazy turnaround spot that I just loved for its simple but iconic concept - this piece will always be close to my heart because of what it took to bring it to life! I was in an edit room on another campaign with the agency when I overheard the ECD talking about this board. My ears pricked up and I couldn’t resist asking about it. At that stage, the agency was struggling to find a director to take on the job with its time and budget constraints and to my producer’s horror, both my hands shot up. I was determined to make it happen no matter what!
Cut to the two-day shoot that threw everything at us - including camera issues, mad weather, half the crew getting lost during a location move, and even political riots that shut us down for a few hours… The lead - another first-time actor - was a real champ and literally rolled with the punches. But it was another lucky scenario where I got to work with a solid creative team who had an incredible relationship with their client. That trust extended to me as they allowed us to knuckle down and get the shot.
By the end of it, we felt like we had gone to war together and for the film to then go viral during something as big as the World Cup, and be so well received globally, was super cool for us all. It demanded real guts from everyone as we used some proper guerrilla filmmaking in order to turn our shoestring budget into something heartwarming and entertaining.
Sanlam - Whole New World
In the aftermath of a pretty hectic time in the world, the brief for Sanlam’s ‘Whole New World’ stopped me in my tracks. Not only for the creative challenges the concept presented but because of the opportunity to create something hopeful… Looking to communicate a sense of hope, the agency asked us to create a supercut of the lyrics to ‘A Whole New World’. I had never done anything like it and swiftly handed my producer a coffee!
I now know that high-concept stock footage jobs are a labour of pure pride. Only sheer determination to not have egg on your face will see you through months of trawling a gazillion hours of user-generated content and reaching into the dark underbelly of stock footage libraries as you attempt to curate mismatched footage around a central theme. It was this crazy near-impossible task of finding footage that wasn’t only innovative but delivered on very specific dialogue… It was still pretty early on in my career (this was also before there were any real AI search tools) so I did most of the trawling myself – manually! The phrase ‘magic carpet ride’ still haunts me.
Often, the very thing that a job is about manifests in the production process, and this one repeatedly challenged my optimistic nature. But in the end, it felt good to create an optimistic snapshot of this time in the world.
