What Agencies Really Look for in a Director | Mike Davidson

Directors often see the boards, the creative call, and the bid. There’s a lot of work happening on the agency side before any of that reaches us.

For Episode 18 of The Commercial Directors Podcast, I spoke with Mike Davidson, head of production at Callen, about how his team approaches director searches and what they hope a director brings to the process.

We covered reels, treatments, collaboration, AI, and the value of involving production earlier in creative development. One part I especially appreciated was the conversation about bringing a distinct point of view to a project while staying open to the people who have been developing it long before the director came aboard.