British Hollywood director to direct Safura's "Drip Drop"

Since ‘Drop Drop’ is basically slated to win Eurovision by almost every forecaster and a bookie in the showbiz, we couldn’t allow such little thing as a mediocre video to spoil Safura’s chances, so we needed the best. We needed a director whose vision would bring to life the thought behind Niklas Flyckt’s, Anders Bagge’s and Stefan Örn’s efforts to create ‘Drip Drop’ – the Song.

A director with the commercial sense so acute, anything he touches would instantly turn into success. A director who is not only shot the music video for the best of the best in the world but is also no stranger to the art of film. A director whose European upbringing would creatively support his take on Hollywood subculture and be an intricate part of Safura’s success on Eurovision. And this director has come to Kiev, Ukraine to shoot the official video of the Azerbaijani entry to Eurovision Song Contest 2010.

Rupert Wainwright was born November 30th 1961, studied at Oxford University, was an actor in 80th. In 1986, he attended UCLA on a Fulbright scholarship to study film and started directing music videos to pay for his short-film work. Wainwright was one of the youngest directors in Columbia Pictures Discovery Program - a competition set up to discover new talent. His short film THE OPEN WINDOW is a comedy of panic involving a man losing his mind as he tries to close an open window that is slamming in the breeze. With its deft blend of paranoid comedy and action, the film was well received in Hollywood and opened many doors.

Wainwright’s music videos brought both a unique story telling sensibility and a strong design sense to rap videos as they took white America by storm. His work with MC Hammer, Niggaz With Attitude (NWA), Ton Loc, Michael Jackson, Too Short and others helped rap cross over beyond a hard core audience and broadened its appeal and album sales.He has won numerous awards for his work, including several MTV Video Music Awards, Adweek’s Effie and a Grammy. In 1996 he shot the controversial short film for Michael Jackson “HISTORY” in Budapest, Hungary.

Wainwright was one of the first directors on the West Coast to take rap videos seriously. His ground breaking work won numerous awards – MTV Awards, Grammies, Soul Train Awards etc, etc, but the attention he is most proud of is the fact that STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON was banned by the FBI.

But Wainwright is best known for his 1999 work, “Stigmata.” Starring Patricia Arquette, Gabriel Byrne and Jonathan Pryce, the film is an original vision of a classical horror film blended with a personal search for faith under the strictures of the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church.

"I was drawn to the script because the Stigmata are a fascinating and unique phenomenon - unseen in almost any movie. Even more interesting, it was happening to a contemporary urban woman – and an atheist,” says Wainwright.

Wainwright brought the script to MGM and supervised the development of the story into dealing not just with the full range of the stigmatic experience, but also with the Gospel of St Thomas, an ancient papyrus roll found in Nag Hammadi in 1945.

The picture was as controversial for its content as it was praised for its striking imagery. The film was released in 1999 and made over $100 million worldwide.

Wainwright continues to successfully straddle the worlds of features and commercials with unique visual style and driving sense of storytelling. His most recent feature was “The Fog” for Revolution Studios and Sony Pictures Entertainment is a retelling of John Carpenter's classic 1980 horror movie. Starring Tom Welling and Selma Blair, it opened at #1 in theatres in Oct 2005.

Wainwright has won awards shooting all over the world for such clients as Reebok, Sprite, ATT, Converse, Honda, Gatorade, Sprint, McDonalds, Deutsche Telekom, Barilla, BP, Disney, Office Depot, WalMart, GHI, Fritos, and many, many others. Wainwright's Olympics commercial was the centerpiece of Russia's successful campaign for the 2014 Winter Olympics and was aired in 142 countries on BBC and CNN International. Wainwright has directed and executive produced pilots and specials for CBS, Fox, NBC, ABC and History Channel.

So you see, Rupert Wainwright is definitely the one for Safura. And if we were you, we would look for the results of their collaboration very carefully for it almost certainly will become a classic in music video genre.

Along with Mr. Wainwright we have invited one of the most illustrious Hollywood stylists - Ms. Tanya Gill to work on the project. Here are the highlights: America’s Next Top Model – stylist.

Costume designer and stylist, worked for a different Hollywood project. Worked for Salma Hayek, Ashtom Kutcher, Sandra Bullock, Johnny Depp, Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz, Prince, Michael Jackson, Mick Jagger and other celebrities. Took part in more than 30 commercials and music videos shooting, worked as stylist for Vogue, GQ, Vanity Fair, Details, was on tour with Backstreet Boys, Joe Cocker and Janet Jackson. Much impressed? Hope so!


/Eurovision Talents/