Melissa Silverman, Director

Saving your eyeballs some time: I’m your director if you want comedy, heart, eye-catching aesthetics, and someone who creates a comfortable, energetic and fun set experience.

As a comedy director living in Los Angeles (but forever a New Yorker), I have an obsessive focus on casting, performance and nuance. It’s like a journalist’s who, what, where, when, how, but with a little I didn’t see that coming. My happy place is eliciting genuine performances out of every type of talent imaginable, from real people to celebrities and up-and-coming improv players, from mariachi bands to rock icons.

With humor, timing is everything. And the right collaborations are well-timed, too.

I’ve been lucky to have worked with a long list of amazing clients, brands, and agencies that have partnered with me to create memorable, relatable, observational campaigns that make people laugh and inspire meaningful action. Among them, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, The National Kidney Foundation, McDonald’s, Breyers, KFC, Snickers, United Way, Disney and the Emmy-nominated launch campaign for Noggin (now Nick Jr.). My awards include Art Director’s Club, D&AD, PromaxBDA, RESfest and TELLY.

Collaboration was also the superpower behind the Funny Or Die featured online series All Over It about a scrappy band of co-working and co-habitating artists that co-created and co-directed with MTV alum Ted Pauly. (That’s a lot of Co-)

In my early days MTV served as my wild and indie creative playground. There, I conceptualized, wrote, and directed campaigns with dozens of artists who were part of the cultural moment, including Madonna, Foo Fighters, and Conan O’Brien.

Fun fact: I also jump-started the career of a then-unknown Jennifer Lawrence when I cast her in a promo campaign for My Super Sweet 16, earning her a SAG card years before that Oscar statuette.

The most personally rewarding project of my career:

Did you know comedy can help save lives?

In this first-of-its-kind campaign for the National Kidney Foundation, we used comedy and actual kidney donors to connect on a very serious topic and raise awareness about the need for living kidney donors.

The unique approach inspired a massive uptick in engagement on the NKF living donor website (a whopping 49% growth in website traffic in the first month of the campaign’s launch).

It’s a powerful reminder that humor can deliver more than laughs.

My collaboration with the National Kidney Foundation, the “LIVING DONOR!” PSA campaign, highlights everyday heroes – living kidney donors – and brings levity and openness to a serious need. As a kidney patient myself currently on the transplant list, my personal connection to the subject matter defined the work every step of the way.

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