22 April 2026, Bike Shed, Los Angeles
shots Out of the Box, is a single day event for the advertising community exploring the craft of creativity.
Featuring interviews, panels and opinion from inside and outside the advertising industry, which seek to deliberate, unpick and discuss some of the most salient topics around the creative state of the nation.
What a ticket offers you
The promise of a fantastic lineup of speakers, delivering invaluable insight and inspiration in a single day.
Breakfast and lunch, courtesy of the Bike Shed’s kitchen.
Networking opportunities, in a setting perfectly geared towards encouraging dialogue.
A chance to make new contacts, catch-up with old ones and discuss topics covered during the day.
Sessions
Deconstructing the Matrix
Lauren Greenfield, Award-winning photographer, filmmaker, documentarian and Founder of Institute Pictures
Named by the New York Times as "America’s foremost visual chronicler of the plutocracy”, Lauren Greenfield is an award-winning photographer (Fast Forward, Girl Culture, Thin, Generation Wealth) and acclaimed director (Thin, The Queen of Versailles, Generation Wealth, The Kingmaker). In Jan 2026, she received two Cinema Eye Honors for her Emmy-nominated FX series, Social Studies. Her viral spot #LikeAGirl was named by AdAge as the Best Super Bowl Ad of All Time.
In 2019, she founded the commercial production company, Institute, with her producing partner, Frank Evers. A Harvard graduate, she has received and been nominated for top awards in all of her disciplines (photography, documentary, commercials, and fine art) and has been profiled in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Times, and other leading publications around the world.
Photographer Stine Heilmann
In this session Greenfield will discuss how a singular artistic voice is built and sustained across decades of cultural change. From her early work at Harvard, where an anthropological eye first shaped her practice, to the award-winning films, photographs, and global campaigns that cemented her international reputation, Greenfield traces how artists return to the same essential questions while constantly reinventing form, medium, and distribution.
Known for her incisive explorations of gender, consumerism, and the American Dream, she connects the rigor of long-term documentary work, to the cultural force of projects like the acclaimed 2015 “#LikeAGirl” Super Bowl commercial and her recent LEGO Education film, in which children define the rules for engaging AI.
Looking ahead to her forthcoming monograph The Queen of Versailles: An American Allegory and a major multi-platform exhibition at Fotografiska Berlin, Greenfield offers a rare, candid blueprint for creators: how to stay fearless, maintain clarity of vision, and build the long creative through-line that defines an enduring artistic voice.
As LA prepares to host the World Cup, GUT LA CCOs Ari Abramovici and Bruno Acanfora ask, does the world’s biggest tournament offer marketers and advertisers a global storytelling engine and will many choose to play it safe on the creative battlefield.
Drawing on real campaign thinking, timely insights, and the experience of working on 3 previous World Cups, this session offers a practical and inspiring look at how brands can show up meaningfully by doing things differently in the moments where the world is watching.
Abramovici and Acanfora will explore how bold storytelling, sharp craft, and cultural timing, can turn fleeting sports moments, into universal narratives, including:
- Sports as storytelling: Why the World Cup functions as a shared cultural narrative and how brands can tap into real emotion, identity, and fandom.
- Sports & advertising craft: How execution, timing, and creative ambition elevate sports advertising from sponsorship to storytelling.
- AI & the future of sports marketing: How AI can enable smarter, faster counterattacks by scaling ideas and craft without replacing the human insight that makes work resonate.
- What it was like to shoot five times with Lionel Messi.
The Art of the Counterattack: Turning Cultural Moments into Creative Advantage
Ari Abramovici, CCO & Bruno Acanfora, CCO, GUT
Airheads
Amy Kean, CEO and Creative Director, Good Shout
With deep fakes plaguing the internet, staged social content going viral, and ridiculous political rhetoric’s being accepted, technology has placed an illusionary layer over reality, and when AI is replacing the mouths of millions, where are all the real voices?
This session will investigate why it’s so easy to dupe the general population, what factors drive what we do and don’t believe, and what the rise of fake content means for creativity.
And finally, for some, is a fake world more appealing than the real one?
In this session Caviar US EP & Managing Director Michael Sagol and Caviar Head of Film & TV Allison Hironaka are joined by acclaimed directors Jody Hill and Keith Schofield to unpack the creative, strategic, and business realities of transitioning from commercial work to long-form storytelling. The panel will discuss the intricacies of what it really takes to make the leap to features, and for a production company to back that move.
The panel will explore:
- How to use the experience, efficiency, and visual precision honed in advertising, to excel in feature filmmaking
- What type of creative evolution is required to move from 30-second storytelling to long-form
- What are the internal and external challenges of green-lighting a feature with a director best known for commercials
- How to navigate industry perception, representation, and financing when shifting lanes
- How directors can balance commercial careers, while developing and delivering long-form projects
This session goes beyond inspiration, offering insight into risk, timing, relationships, and what it takes for a director to expand their creative footprint from brand storytelling to the big screen.
From spots to features: How commercial vision can evolve into cinematic scope
Michael Sagol EP & MD, Caviar; Allison Hironaka, Head of Film & TV, Caviar; Jody Hill, Director; Keith Schofield, Director
Sponsored by
Past speakers
As Head of Production at Deutsch LA, Diego leads broadcast, film, music, content, print and experiential production teams across all brands, including Taco Bell, Walmart, Nintendo, Dr Pepper, Peacock, Lowe’s, Adobe, PetSmart, Nerdwallet and more.
In addition to leading agency production teams, Diego runs Steelhead- Deutsch's own 50,000 sq ft production company comprised of in-house directors, makers, offline editors, animators, motion graphics and VFX artists. Steelhead regularly produces with non-agency brands like Yonex, Interscope Records, Drizly, the Ad Council and others.
Previously as Head of US Broadcast Production at R/GA, Diego led production teams across all six US offices and produced national broadcast and online films for global brands including Samsung, Google, Nike, Amazon, The Ad Council, Netflix, eBay, Jet.com, Quaker and Beats by Dre. An Emmy-winning film producer, Diego has produced award-winning work such as the wildly successful “Love Has No Labels” short film for The Ad Council and the 4-part “Hear What You Want” film series for Beats by Dre.
Outside of work, Diego is a big film buff and his passions include travel, swimming, board games and spending time with his dog, Ducky.
Autumn is the Los Angeles based Head of Production at Quality Meats with a passion for creative excellence and an extensive background in multi-platform content production. Over her storied career, she has had the pleasure of traveling the world, collaborating with great talent and creating award winning work for companies including Facebook, Google, YouTube, Honda and Playstation. She is a proud maker of things, and loves to help bring great ideas to life in whatever shape or size they may come in. When she’s not working or parenting, she can be found snowboarding, baking sourdough, or tending to her many plants.
Damian Kulash, Jr. is an artist, musician, filmmaker, and the frontman for the polymath rock group OK Go. He’s directed the band’s long string of boundary-pushing music videos, racking up more than 300 million views online. They’ve danced in zero gravity and on treadmills, they’ve built a warehouse-sized Rube Goldberg machine to run in sync with a song, and they’ve choreographed hundreds of explosions filmed in just a few seconds.
Damian has received the Smithsonian American Ingenuity Award for Visual Art, a Grammy, three MTV VMA’s, twenty-one Cannes Lions, three Webby Awards, and has had his work presented at The Guggenheim, MoCA, LACMA, The Hirschhorn, The Hammer Museum, and Seattle’s Museum of Pop Culture.
Damian graduated magna cum laude from Brown University in 1998. He’s written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and Rolling Stone, and testified before the US Congress in support of Net Neutrality. He serenaded Barack Obama at his 50th birthday party, appeared on the Simpsons, and Animal from The Muppets once played the drums in his garage. He lives and works in Los Angeles.
Suzanne Hargrove is the Vice President/Executive Producer of PRETTYBIRD. An Emmy Award- winning commercial veteran, Hargrove started her career in music videos before entering the advertising business.
She quickly started producing high-end commercials, broadening the scope to include branded content, experiential, and new media projects. In 2024, Hargrove was nominated for Ad Age’s Creativity Award for Executive Producer of the Year.
Some of her award-winning spots include Nike’s “Unlimited Courage” (winner at Cannes Lion, AICP, D&AD, Kinsale Shark), the Webby-winning short film “House Comes With a Bird” for Miu Miu, the Cannes Lions-winning spot for Adidas “The Original Impossible” featuring the Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, the Shots-winning “Rise, Dead Man” for the video game The Callisto Protocol, and the D&AD-winning spot for GoPuff “Lil Dicky Quartertime Show,” which premiered online during the first and second quarters of 2022 Super Bowl.
She executive produced two Super Bowl spots in 2024, including the Jeremy Renner-led musical commercial for Silk and the weeks-long campaign for CeraVe, starring Michael Cera. The campaign, titled “Michael CeraVe,” was named the winner of the Super Clio and placed #1 on both Ad Age and Adweek’s Super Bowl recap lists.
While Hargrove remains rooted in advertising, she continues to extend her reach beyond traditional commercials, embracing non-traditional projects including Audi’s “Think Faster - The World’s Fastest AMA” campaign, where Reddit ‘Ask Me Anything’ conversations were live broadcast from the passenger seat of an Audi going 130 MPH, and is currently producing a podcast for Audible, due out in 2024. Hargrove also serves on the AICP West Board of Directors.
Jo is a multi-award winning creative leader with a vision to create work that has real impact in the real world. She spent over 20 years of her career in London and then moved to LA in 2023. She’s regularly invited to join and chair international creative award juries such as Cannes Lions and to speak at events and conferences both inside and outside of the industry.
On the periphery of advertising, she’s proactively curated two large, thought-provoking exhibitions: There’s a Good Girl and There’s a Good Immigrant. Each gaining wide-reaching PR coverage.
She’s also the founder and host of the popular, non-profit event, Good Girls Eat Dinner, since 2015. The mission is simple: to serve up visible, inspiring, female role-models across the creative industries and beyond. Feedback suggests it’s the most interesting dinner party you’ll ever go to. Good Girls Eat Dinner is now available in take-out form, AKA a podcast!
Paul Scheer is a SAG Award-winning Actor known for his work on FX’s "The League," "Black Monday," “Veep" and "Fresh off the Boat."
He co-created MTV’s cult sketch series "Human Giant" and created the Adult Swim series "NTSF:SD:SUV.” He has won Clios for his directing work with CANN and recently partnered with 988 Oklahoma’s Mental Health Hotline for a Super Bowl Commercial. His multi-award-winning Podcast "How Did This Get Made?" walked away with back-to-back Ambies for "Best Comedy" Podcast. His Memoir "Joyful Recollections of Trauma" (HarperOne) comes out in May 2024. Paul is represented as a Director by RYB for all of his commercial, advertising & branded content projects.
A seasoned production leader with more than 25 years of international experience across all continents, building relationships with global partners, Kati leads and manages Erich and Kallman’s production department.
Known for producing cutting-edge, best-in-class creative work, and overseeing teams, Kati also applies her skills across industry business affairs – including instituting best practices in talent and traffic divisions.
Kati continuously fosters innovative solutions to all creative assignments and challenges, while setting up cost effective production and post-production pipelines
I grew up in South Africa. Moved to Miami when I was 12. Lost my accent by the time I was 15. Biggest regret of my life. Realized people actually got paid to write ads when I won a baby grand piano for a radio spot I submitted to a contest put on by a piano store. I don't play piano. Graduated high school. Went to the University of Florida from 2001-2005. Got a B.S. in Advertising and a B.A. in English. Decided to go to portfolio school. Attended Miami Ad School from 2005 - 2007 and got to intern and work in Hamburg, London and Boulder. Moved to New York. Started as a Junior Copywriter at Strawberryfrog NY. Worked there from 2007-2011. Took improv classes at Upright Citizens Brigade from 2007-2009. Got hit by a tidal wave of gross, gray slush in February by the M14 Bus while I was carrying my groceries 4 avenue blocks. Realized I needed to get the fuck out of NYC (still love it though). Moved to LA. Got a job as a Senior Writer at Deutsch LA. Worked there from 2011-2013. Left in 2013 to work as a Lead Writer at 72andSunny. Got promoted to Creative Director in 2015. Had a kid. Big fan. Took 6 months of cooking classes at the New School of Cooking in 2017. The trick to make sure your pan sauce never breaks is constant whisking. Went over to TBWA Media Arts Lab in 2018. Had another kid. Also a big fan. Currently working on pitching a cartoon, making custom ice-cream flavors for my friends and trying not to irreversibly scar my children.
New York
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