Daniel Kleinman is a commercials director. He has won the top awards for his advertising work at Cannes, D&AD, the New York One Show, BTAA, Clio, Creative Circle, Midsummer Awards and many others. He has been recognised as the number one most awarded director in the world in the Gunn Report. He has received the Presidents award from the Creative Circle and the Chairman’s award from the BTAA and has been rated number one in Campaign’s list of hottest directors over four consecutive years.

After gaining a BA First Class Honours in Graphic Design from Hornsey Art School in 1977 he went on to work for a while as an illustrator “making small highly detailed drawings for small highly disappointing amounts of money”, he also collaborated on storyboards with directors working in the emerging music video industry leading to his own first music video in 1983. 

Daniel pioneered the use of special effects in post-production over the course of directing more than 100 videos in the 80’s winning numerous awards for work with artists such as ZZ Top, Fleetwood Mac, Prince, and Madonna.

From the ‘90’s he has concentrated on advertising however he has not only created ads needing complex special effects for clients such as Guinness, X-Box, Chrysler, Johnnie Walker and Audi but Daniel’s ability to direct comedy and dialogue also led to work for Boddingtons, Durex, John Smiths, Super Noodles and John West. His recent work includes Orange, Monster.com, Nissan Qashqai and Smirnoff.

Daniel has also directed TV drama and comedies notably Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse’s “Smashie and Nicey-The End Of An Era”, which was BAFTA nominated and won the rose at Montreux. He has taken over the mantle from Maurice Binder creating the title sequences for the James Bond films.

In 2006 Daniel and fellow director Ringan Ledwidge founded the production company Rattling Stick. The company is only two and a half years old but has already been voted the UK’s number one production company in Campaign magazine as well as at the BTAA awards for 2008. It also claimed the number one spot in Televisual magazine’s ‘Production Company Peer Poll.’

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