Tuff Contender Welcomes Paul B. Cummings to Director Roster

To begin the new year, Tuff Contender executive producers DJay Brawner and Max Rose announce the signing of director Paul B. Cummings to the roster. Cummings has directed commercials for Doritos, Dunkin’ Donuts, Hotels.com, K-Mart, McDonald’s, Taco Bell, and directed work for agencies Alma DDB, Dentsu, Deutsch, and Hill Holiday. Cummings was previously represented by Noble (formally Duck Studios). 

“What drew me into Paul was a short film he created,” noted Brawner, referring to Margot’s Last Meal. “It was touching, it was endearing, and it made me cry – it was the opposite of his commercial work in tone, but visually at the same level as everything else he creates. I knew there was depth to him beyond the comedy we see in his commercial work, this made me want to bring him into Tuff without question. Upon meeting, the similarities in our approach to projects were unparalleled. We are thrilled to have Paul on our roster.” 

Cummings enjoyed one of the earliest YouTube viral waves in 2006 with his stop-motion digital short “Tony vs. Paul”, which garnered over 6 million views and subsequently earned him a Webby nomination. Shortly thereafter, Cummings was signed by creative director John Andrews with KaChew! productions and he deployed his stop-motion techniques for several brands including Red Vines and Yoplait’s Go-Gurt. In 2013, Cummings earned “Best Animated Film” from the One Screen Film Festival for his short “Instagramimation”. The tedium of stop motion honed Cummings’ storyboarding methods, which contributed to his leap into live action work with celebrity talent including Paul Rudd, Sacha Baron Cohen, Jon Hamm, Zac Efron, Key & Peele and Adam DeVine. 

Most recently, Cummings worked with Adult Swim to create live-action shorts for the Rick and Morty season finale featuring Emmy-Award winning actor Christopher Lloyd (Back To The Future, Taxi) and Jaeden Martell (It, Defending Jacob). Cummings also serves as Creative Executive Producer on the upcoming animated series “Summer Memories” an A&N Productions created by Adam Yaniv and follows the adventures of Jason and Ronnie as Jason looks back on the most pivotal summer of his life. 

“DJay and I speak the same language when it comes to production,” says Cummings. “We both love a new project, the relationships with our crews and have an insatiable drive to create content interesting and exciting for clients. I look forward to going to bat for each other.”