Vaughan Arnell

Vaughan’s passion for film blossomed at Epsom School of Design where he studied graphics. During his time there he dabbled with his first promos. Having graduated, Vaughan went to work in London as a runner for a sleeve design company (record sleeve for our younger readers). Realising that film was to be his medium to express himself he moved to a production company and worked for Tim Pope.

His first big Directing break came a few years later with the video ‘ Love of the Common People’ for Paul Young and he has never looked back. He went on to make dozens of videos before he met Anthea Benton. They decided to collaborate as a one of the first directing duos and took the music scene by storm, Directing promos for Terence Trent D’Arby, Simply Red and Curiosity Killed the Cat amongst many others.

The progression into commercials was inevitable and their opportunity came whilst making a spec film for Simons Palmer Denton that ended up winning the Agency the BT account. With the addition of the Wrangler jeans commercial to their reel, they were well on the way to establishing themselves as formidable commercial Directors.

Their major breakthrough came with the highly acclaimed Levis ‘Creek’ for BBH. A potential banana skin because of the 501 heritage, they nailed it with one of the most stunning and powerful 501 commercials made to date. It was decorated with two D&AD Silvers, BTA gold and a plethora of other awards.

There followed a series of commercials for many high profile clients including Smirnoff and another film for Levis entitled ‘Spaceman’. Then came arguably their finest hour with the D&AD Best Direction award for the stunning Stella Artois ‘Red Shoes’ film which cleaned up at all the award ceremonies that year.

After deciding to go their separate ways, Vaughan jumped straight into music video work for The Spice Girls, George Michael and Robbie Williams. The commercials continued with a flurry of films for Carlsberg, Lucozade, Dockers and Audi to name but a few.

Vaughan is the only Director to have received 3 Brit awards for his music videos for George Michael ‘Fast Love’, ‘Millennium’ for Robbie Williams and the Spice Girls ‘Say You’ll be There’. Having had a break from promos over the last year, he will be looking to engage on selected projects over the coming year.

More recently Vaughan has delivered outstanding work for The RAF, Lexus, Intel, Halifax, O2 and Carlsberg.
 
With his fresh and innovative style and his ability to connect with huge audiences in all formats of film, Vaughan continues to go from strength to strength.