Joe Pytka

Joe Pytka (* November 4, 1938 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) is an American film director. Pytka is known primarily as a director of commercials. He also shot music videos, documentaries and two feature films.

Life and career

Pytkas grandparents emigrated from Poland to America. Pytka grew up in the Pittsburgh suburb of Braddock. Already in his early youth he wanted to be artists, and sat down with it at the age of 8 years in the Children's Center of the Carnegie Museum of Art apart.

Then on his father's wish he studied at the University of Pittsburgh Chemical Engineering, which, according Pytka but "disastrous " ended. He left without a degree, the University of Pittsburgh and worked at WRS Motion Picture and Video Lab in the 1960s and 1970s. There he became familiar with basic techniques of film and recording of film editing. Later he produced shows and documentaries for the local television station WQED.

To finance further projects he took over from the late 1960s, the first orders for commercials. Some of his first commercials he made for the Pittsburgh beer brand Iron City Beer. Together with his brother John in 1984 he founded the production company Pytka Productions. Pytka turned in his career, more than 5,000 commercials, including PepsiCo, Budweiser, McDonald's and Nike. More than 30 of his spots were shown at the annual Super Bowl.

For his work Pytka has won several awards, including three Directors Guild of America Awards in the category Commercial Direction. In 1997 he won the first Primetime Emmy in the category Commercial. Advertising Age took him in 1999 to the list of Top 100 Advertising People. In 2011 he received the Clio Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Since the early 1980s Pytka also shot music videos, including several for Michael Jackson. In Spike Lee's documentary Bad 25 Pytka tells about his work with Jackson.

In 1989 he directed his first feature film Let it ride with Richard Dreyfuss, David Johansen and Teri Garr. In 1996, the animated - live action mix Space Jam was followed by the basketball player Michael Jordan and the Looney Tunes animations. While all remained both artistically and financially to win his expectations, Space Jam played at a budget of about 80 million U.S. dollars worldwide more than 230 million U.S. dollars.

Private life

His wife Emanuelle learned Pytka in 1987 on a flight to Sweden know. From the relationship Two daughters were born.

From 2002 to 2011, it operated Pytka the restaurant Bastide on Melrose Place in West Hollywood, which was initially considered by leading food critics with very high ratings, but later through ever-changing chefs did not reach the high quality of the first year and closed repeatedly by Pytka and new opened.

Filmography (selection)

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