Kate McMullen: Breaking down walls

Signed with production company Bold, director Kate McMullen fields a two-pronged career.

She enjoys exploring the open field of her own short film work, which ranges from deconstructing the myths and misconceptions surrounding Saint George, to the cruel divisions of the Cold War as seen through the eyes of a bull separated from his cow-eyed herd by the wall dividing East from West Germany. 

And then there are spots bursting with life and subtle brand signalling, such as the indefatigable women of Leigh-on-Sea for Tesco Love Stories: Wild Swim, or the diverse cast of real people – not actors – redefining some of racier ways of living well for BUPA This Is Health. 

Above: McMullen's most recent short film was short listed at BAFTA, picked up various prizes on the short film festival circuit and also won a Silver Screen at this year's Young Director Award.

Starting out as a copywriter in Paris with JWT, then moving to Shanghai as a Creative Director with TBWA, it was there she took the leap from agency to directing spots as well as her first film short, 2016’s Nail House, a docu-drama about Shanghai’s beautiful old neighbourhoods rapidly disappearing to developers. 

“I’d get up at 4.30am and go out on this electric scooter filming these demolition sites,” she remembers. “Compared to my day job, it was hugely liberating to have that total creative freedom. The flipside was that I had no focus, and it took a long time to distil it into a coherent film. The advantage of a brief,” she adds, “is that it really focuses the mind.” 

The advantage of a brief is that it really focuses the mind.

Not that she hadn’t already been learning the ropes of turning briefs into actuality. “I loved writing scripts and being on set,” she says. “I’m sure the directors hated me, hovering around the monitor asking endless questions.” 

Her training was not in film or television, but in history. “It’s a creative subject, even though you deal with facts,” she says. “The challenge is, what do you do with those facts? How do you put them together, and is there a new angle?” It’s such questions that laid down a solid ground for her shorts deconstructing St George and reimagining the Cold War, while the disciplines of an advertising brief honed her skills of concision. 

Above: The spot for BUPA featured a cast of real people redefining some of racier ways of living well.

How was it, swapping the position of creative director for a director’s chair? “On the agency side, you’re coming up with all these ideas, you’re sitting in a cloud of question marks, trying things. It’s liberating, but also frustrating. On the directing side, in commercial work, everything is concrete, it’s all there. Which comes with a different kind of pressure, and it’s up to you to make this thing work, because so many people have put so much work into it. You have to make sure it comes together.” 

No one sits down with a bowl of popcorn to watch adverts.

But working in advertising has given her, she says, crucial lessons she applies to her short films. “Advertising teaches you to earn your audience. No one sits down with a bowl of popcorn to watch adverts. Most people say they hate adverts so you really have to think hard about how to bring your audience in, how to befriend them, how to hold their interest, how to be memorable. 

Tight storytelling is something that advertising teaches you to do – a coherent, powerful story in 30 seconds, which is not easy. So I do try to keep my short films lean, with zero flab, and they are better for it.”

Above: McMullen's short film, St George, explores England's patron saint's multicultural origins.

Coming in at a cool one minute and 40 seconds, her compact, multi-faceted excavation of the St George myth plugs into the English patron saint’s multicultural origins in the face of 2016’s Brexit referendum. 

“It felt relevant and a good thing to explore at that time,” she says, but she was careful, she adds, for it to be a conversation, not a lecture “I hope I avoid any moralising tone. I like to keep things entertaining, with a light touch, however serious it is.” 

Another campaign, for the Women's Rights Foundation, explored the darker side of a country across its 90-second run-time. Called Welcome to Malta, the film is a chilling dose of reality, disguised as a guided tour of the island of Malta. "This was about creating awareness in Europe for the situation in Malta," says McMullen. "In the UK we think of Malta as a holiday destination, so that felt like an enticing way in. I think the message hits home harder in the midst of all that colour and excitement."

Advertising teaches you to earn your audience.

On the lighter side of her oeuvre, for Tesco’s Wild Swim, McMullen wanted to use real women, not actors, “and to tell their stories as authentically as possible while plugging a very tasty piece of pork”. She spent time with the gang – and has since gone back to join them in a wild swim of her own. “It was important not to create a sentimental ad, or anything that felt patronising towards that age group,” she says. “They’re not ‘grandmas’. They’re not knitters. They’re fearless. They have a great sense of humour, and their energy really rubbed off on us on set.” 

Above: Welcome to Malta explored the darker side of a country across its 90-second run-time.

One of her latest spots, Naturally Flexitarian saw her create a noisy extended French family, culled from stacks of selfie tapes, and let loose over a table of quality meats. “It was about trying to persuade the French to eat better quality meat, and less often,” she says. “And I really liked their script; it wasn’t moralising but explored the diversity of different levels of commitment and the quirks and colour of family life. They seemed to have a really good time,” she adds of her acting troupe, “and, on-screen, they became a coherent family. A lot of it was just filming their natural interactions, watching them enjoy themselves.” 

I do try to keep my short films lean, with zero flab, and they are better for it.

The freer choreography of that documentarian approach, allied to a tight brief and 49-second time span, makes for a spot packed with life and charm, and her method here is not dissimilar to her best-known short, Little Berlin. The short, which was shortlisted for a BAFTA and which won a Silver Screen at the 2023 YDA as well as various Grands Prix on the short film circuit, is based on the true story of Peter the bull, separated from his cows by an ugly concrete wall after Germany is divided in two by the GDR in 1952, in order to stop their citizens escaping Soviet communist rule.