Makes Directorial Debut with Missouri Lottery Campaign
Actor, director and producer Andy Richter, best known for his long run as Conan O’Brien’s sidekick on Late Night, has signed with STORY, which has offices in New York, Chicago and Santa Monica, for exclusive representation as a commercial director. It marks the first time that Richter has made himself available to direct spots. He recently made his directorial debut with a campaign for the Missouri Lottery out of St. Louis-based Adamson, a full-service brand experience agency.

STORY plans to market Richter based on his prodigious comedic skills, something he honed in creating sketches and other comedy bits for Late Night and through his subsequent experience in television and film. “Andy is a very talented and funny guy, and he is extremely well prepared to step behind the camera,” said STORY executive producer Cliff Grant. “He understands the process of working with actors and casting, of setting up shots, and editing. Agencies are going to be very excited to work with him.”

In addition to his role on Late Night, Richter produced and starred in two critically-acclaimed network comedies, Andy Richter Controls the Universe for Fox and Andy Barker, P.I. for NBC. He also starred in Fox’s Quintuplets and has guest starred in numerous shows. He was among the stars of the hit animated feature Madagascar and recently reprised the role in Madagascar II. He is also a five-time Emmy nominee for his work as a writer on Late Night

Richter is not entirely new to commercials. After graduating from Chicago’s Columbia College with a degree in film, he worked for several years in commercial production. (It was through that experience that he first met STORY’s Grant.) “I’ve always felt that commercials are where I come from,” Richter said. “It was the first kind of shooting that I knew. As I got more involved in television, I’ve done a lot of producing, writing and pitching ideas…so I think this is within my wheelhouse.”

Richter’s work for the Missouri Lottery offers testimony to his skill as a filmmaker. The two spots are set up as ads for “Saint Nicholas Technical Academy,” a trade school for would-be Santas. Men in red suits and fluffy beards undergo boot camp training in diving down chimneys and managing elves. Holiday Scratcher Tickets from the Missouri Lottery are offered as an alternative to “spread holiday magic.”

Adamson executive creative director Tim Halpin said that the agency considered it a coup to land someone with Richter’s comic pedigree to direct the campaign. “Andy knows what’s funny,” Halpin observed. “And he’s been on enough sets and worked with enough actors and crew that we had complete confidence in him. There was a lot of good collaborative stuff happening on the set…it couldn’t have gone any better.”

“Andy came in with a lot of ideas, many of which we ended up shooting and are in the spot,” added Adamson associate creative director Troy Jones. “He was hungry to show what he could do.”

Richter said he was also pleased with how well the spots turned out. “We didn’t have an excess of time or money, but I find those constraints challenging and fun,” he recalled. “I like the challenge of making the spots that are funny enough that people want to watch them.