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Miles Jay is a Canadian filmmaker whose work includes Super Bowl commercials and music videos. He won an Emmy Award in 2018 for his work on a Squarespace advertisement featuring actor John Malkovich and was nominated for a Grammy Award for his work on Leon Bridges' "River" music video.[1][2] He was nominated for Best Commercial Director at the Directors Guild of America Awards in 2016 and 2018.[3][4]
He is the son of television director Michael Robison and his mother, who was a set director.[5][6] His early aspirations were to become an athlete but while still in high school he began to seriously pursue filmmaking as a career by enrolling in a TV production class and spending his downtime reading Final Cut Pro manuals.[5]
He enrolled in Ryerson University's filmmaking program where he made a short film "BLINK" which won the TIFF Student Showcase. A year later he went on to direct 2012's Carly's Cafe, an interactive film intended to help viewers relate to a young autistic girl's experience, Carly Fleischmann.[7] The film was later used by the President of Poland in a presentation to the United Nations to support the Convention of Rights of People with Disabilities.[6]
Jay went onto make a short film which won the Best Student Film at the Toronto International Film Festival and a music video that was short-listed for the Young Director award in Cannes.[5]
He went onto win numerous other awards, including Best Director & Best Film at the Air Canada Film Festival,[6] the Jury Award at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival for "The Statistical Analysis of Your Failing Relationship."[8] and a Directors Guild of America nomination for Best Commercial Directors in 2016.
His commercial projects include spots for Airbnb, Apple, Bose, Budweiser, ESPN, Facebook, Google, Heineken, Major League Baseball, and Samsung.[9][10][3] Two of his commercials for Squarespace, which starred John Malkovich, debuted in 2017 during Super Bowl LI.[11]
In 2015, he signed with production company Smuggler for international representation.[12]
A seven-minute music video for Leon Bridges' "River" was nominated for the best music video Grammy Award, though it lost to Beyonce's "Formation". The music video is mostly a fictional interpretation of scenes Jay witnessed while visiting Baltimore in the aftermath of protests over the death of Freddie Gray.[13] In an interview with The Canadian Press he said, "I was much more interested in what people did when they left the riots."[13]
"River" was shot mostly with a Canadian crew, including cinematographer Chayse Irvin, who also worked on Beyonce's Grammy-nominated music film "Lemonade."[13]
- 2016 Grammy Award Nominee for Leon Bridges "River" video[2]
- 2016 Directors Guild of America Nominee for AT&T[4]
- 2017 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Commercial for Squarespace[1]
- 2017 South by Southwest Grand Jury Prize for Leon Bridges "River" video[14]
- 2018 Directors Guild of America Nominee for Bose and Squarespace[3]
- 2018 Association of Independent Commercial Producers music video award winner for Leon Bridges "River" video[15]
- 2018 Grand Prix for Entertainment at Cannes Lions for Jay-Z's 'Smile' music video[16]
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