The Directors: Ben Lankester

Ben Lankester is multi-award winning writer, director and photographer based in London. Working across the commercial, film, music and television industries, he specialises in combining luxury product and automotive commercials with intimate performances pieces, as well as working on high-end documentary stories for charities, brands and international artists. Lankester’s autobiographical drama, 'Who’s Counting', produced for a pregnancy charity, won multiple industry awards upon release.

Name: Ben Lankester

Location: Walthamstow, London

Repped by/in: FORM

Awards: Tommy’s, ‘Who’s Counting?’ — The Chair Award & Best Video Campaign at The Drum Awards for Social Purpose, Low Budget Silver at CICLOPE, Highly Commended at The Brand Film Awards, Best Drama at The Performance Short Film Competition, Best Film at Manchester Lift-Off Film Festival

LBB> What are some upcoming projects that you're excited about? Tell us a bit about them?

Ben> I’ve just completed a 25 minute short film called ‘Delivery’ which I made alongside my wife, producer Bophanie Lun. The film takes place on an NHS maternity ward as a newly-qualified midwife oversees two life-and-death pregnancy cases during the most challenging night shift of her career.

I first met trainee midwife Rosie Chappel when I directed her in ‘Who’s Counting?’, mine and Bophanie’s fundraising commercial for UK pregnancy charity Tommy’s. The idea for the film came to me months later when Rosie shared a photo of her dressed in her scrubs, announcing that she had only five weeks left of her training.

I approached Rosie with the idea for the film and over the following year, via countless Zoom calls, Google docs, voice notes and text messages and using Rosie’s own lived experience, we developed a story that would be built with complete authenticity, pulling inspiration from Rosie’s recollections of heartbreak and despair in the patient rooms, of tension-filled moments in the operating theatre, and of quiet calm and connection in the spaces midwives retreat to during these gruelling shifts in increasingly understaffed and under-resourced maternity wards.

Every cast member and head of department we subsequently brought on board had the shared ambition to make ‘Delivery’ as true to life as possible, with the goal of shining a light on an underrepresented profession at a time of great strain on the NHS and its frontline workers. We built an amazing team of collaborators including co-producer Joe Binks, DP Rachel Clark, and editor Sacha Szwarc, and dedicated post partners in HARBOR, PUSH VFX, Bleat Post Production, and ELMNTL.

We’re looking to start our festival run ahead of an online release later in the year. We couldn’t be more proud of what we’ve made and can’t wait to share it with the world.

LBB> What excites you in the advertising industry right now, as a director? Any trends or changes that open new opportunities?

Ben> Similarly to how I approached the making of ‘Delivery’, I love this fusion between documentary and fiction in the commercial space, where we’re able to combine people in their real life roles in charities and organisations with acting talent cast in key parts.

I took this approach with my commercials for Tommy’s and Marie Curie, where that combination of the two created this authenticity that straight fictional scripts simply cannot replicate. I love it when clients and agencies are willing to explore this process because the results are always so impactful.

LBB> What elements of a script sets one apart from the other and what sort of scripts get you excited to shoot them?

Ben> I love it when real life is integrated into a script in an authentic way, tapping into that shared experience we all have as human beings. I get the most excited by scripts that rely on performance to achieve that authenticity, where I can work with actors to create moments that feel as though they live outside the traditional advertising space.

LBB> How do you approach creating a treatment for a spot?

Ben> I begin by listening back to the call and really trying to establish what the client or agency is trying to achieve. What does success look like for them with this film and how can I help them achieve it? Although I work with some of the best designers and picture researchers out there, I often kick off the image research stage myself, creating a mood board of stills, always inspired by cinema, that can help us build a jumping off point for the look and feel of the film.

I enjoy the treatment building part of the process as much as any other. Even if I’m a little lukewarm on a project at the outset, once I’ve created my treatment and explored my approach I’m always desperate to win it. It’s always that research and development phase that fully ignites my passion to win a job and shoot it.

LBB> If the script is for a brand that you're not familiar with/ don’t have a big affinity with or a market you're new to, how important is it for you to do research and understand that strategic and contextual side of the ad? 

Ben> If a director doesn’t have a particular affinity with a product or industry, I actually think that this can work in a brand’s favour. A great example of this is my work in automotive. I’ve never been especially interested in or knowledgeable about cars, but this hasn’t prevented me from making what I see as some of my best spots in this field. At the end of the day we’re showing how a product looks, how it works, how it fits into a particular lifestyle, and how it makes you feel.

Some separation from these things at the inception of a job can provide some much needed objectivity when it comes to me talking to an agency and client about achieving these goals.

LBB> For you, what is the most important working relationship for a director to have with another person in making an ad? And why?

Ben> For sure it’s with the creative team at the agency or brand and this starts right at the outset with the briefing call. I can get a pretty good idea straight away how this relationship is going to work by how collaborative the creatives are when they first pitch me their idea. From here it’s all about trust and teamwork, and making sure that we each know when to retreat when it’s time for the other to step into the role they are there to fulfil with the shared goal of making this thing as good as it can be.

LBB> What type of work are you most passionate about - is there a particular genre or subject matter or style you are most drawn to?

Ben> I love working in the charity sector where everyone is pulling together to create work that is truly making a difference. As I experienced with my films for Tommy’s and Marie Curie, there’s a sweet spot in advertising where deeply compassionate and meaningful work can be made in a commercial space.

I often find that in these scenarios any egos or sense of individuality is straight out the window - we’re all there for one single, defined purpose, which is to make this piece as impactful as it can be so that lives can be changed.

On Tommy’s, this was especially evident. Made in the post-Covid summer boom of 2021 where it was so hard to find crew members, our whole team pulled together to make something we were all so proud of, a film which was part of a movement that has now led to a change in government legislation around recurrent miscarriage.

LBB> What misconception about you or your work do you most often encounter and why is it wrong?

Ben> I have a broad range of spots on my reel now that live in different sectors - charity, automotive, lifestyle, documentary, sport, product etc. I think there’s a common misconception that a director has to be singular to one specific genre in order to be a true specialist in it, and that’s simply not the case. It’s almost reverse pigeonholing. As directors we bring our expertise to a range of genres and those same skills cross over in ways that breathe much needed life into other projects.

I’ve often heard that my portfolio has a particular emotion to it, and those comments are just as much in reference to my work in automotive or documentary as they are about my more directly ‘emotional’ work in charity.

LBB> What’s the craziest problem you’ve come across in the course of a production – and how did you solve it?

Ben> Once on a job for Aston Martin we were shooting on one of the most remote beaches in the UK and suddenly had to contend with a changing tide. Our entire plan for the morning was out the window and we had to figure out a way of salvaging the day while arranging and briefing a second unit to return to the beach to get what we needed.

All our department heads came together to solve the problem as we divided and conquered. Adapting, troubleshooting and solving problems is such a huge part of the job of being a director and one of the parts of the job I love the most.

LBB> How do you strike the balance between being open/collaborative with the agency and brand client while also protecting the idea?

Ben> Once we get to set, the idea has become a culmination of the brand’s initial ‘problem’ they are looking to solve, the agency’s creative idea devised to solve that problem, and the director’s approach to that idea with the initial problem in mind.

So, my level of openness and collaboration with the agency and client is always in service of this one problem and the idea at the heart of our shared response. How do we best serve that idea and protect it? It’s a question I ask the agency and client at all stages of a project, but especially on set if a setback or potential difference of opinion surfaces, which is only natural and a welcome thing when trying to achieve the best possible result.

"Everyone cares and everyone shares", is my mantra, meaning everyone there cares enough to be passionate about their opinion and wanting it heard, and everyone has a shared ambition to make this the best piece of work it can be. If we all keep that in the forefront of our minds, I believe that balance between collaboration and protectiveness takes care of itself.

LBB> What are your thoughts on opening up the production world to a more diverse pool of talent? Are you open to mentoring and apprenticeships on set? 

Ben> I do mentoring myself and believe it’s a hugely important part of what we do and should be doing as directors. So much of my drive to be a mentor was because I never had one myself, and I know how important this person could have been in the early stages of my career when I was finding my feet in the industry and trying to navigate through all the noise. I went to film school in Bournemouth so I’m part of the mentorship team there where the university has a brilliant apprenticeship scheme with diversity at the forefront.

LBB> Your work is now presented in so many different formats - to what extent do you keep each in mind while you're working (and, equally, to what degree is it possible to do so)?

Ben> I think it’s become a lot more achievable in the last five years with the introduction of large format cameras, where it’s still possible to shoot on the format best suited to the film at the centre of the campaign while keeping enough of the image intact for the various outputs and deliverables. We live in a social first world and need to embrace that, and I believe we can finally do that now without sacrificing the primary visual objectives of the central hero spot.

LBB> Which pieces of your work do you feel show what you do best – and why? 

Ben> My commercial short ‘Who’s Counting?’ for Tommy’s demonstrates my ability to combine real people with acting talent to create authenticity, a process I detailed earlier. I devised the concept for this myself and took the idea to the charity. It was built entirely from the ground up by me and my wife after our own experiences with recurrent miscarriage, so we couldn’t be more proud of the finished film, the impact it made, the awards it won at The Drum, CICLOPE and others, and how well it was received by the world.

My Christmas spot last year for Marie Curie was in many ways a continuation of my process working on Tommy’s, where, with fundraising ambitions, I matched actors with real people working within the charity. I collaborated with the amazing team at GOOD agency on this and I think everyone was very proud of the stories we were able to tell and the amount of money the campaign generated at such a difficult time of year for so many.

I’m also really proud of my work for Aston Martin and TAG Heuer, where a focus on craft is front and centre of the storytelling. As a director I am adept at capturing dedicated people in their creative and professional environments and I also have a real affinity with landscapes and the natural world. This particular spot captures those two worlds in a way I find really satisfying.

I’ve collaborated with KitchenAid for many years now but my most recent branded doc for them was the first solely shot in London as I followed Ghanaian cook Zoe Adjonyoh around her neighbourhood of Hackney Wick, finishing with one of her famous supper clubs with friends. I’m proud of this one because it not only allowed me to photograph a part of the city that means so much to me, but also demonstrates my editorial skills with mixed media in the documentary space, combining digital footage with 8mm and making use of some of the many 35mm photographs I’ve made over the last 20 years while travelling all over the US for KitchenAid and other brands and clients.