Golden LA’s Saman Kesh Gets Filthy Rich and Masters His Craft for Harry's

Harry's has launched two new spots directed by Saman Kesh from Golden LA. "Filthy Rich" and "Master Craftsman" take the same simple, funny idea and run it through two very different worlds: you don't have to be either of those things to smell great and get an excellent shave. All you need is Harry's. 

“Filthy Rich” drops us into a ridiculously cinematic sprawl spanning half a century. One man imagines an entire life where he strikes oil in the 1920s, builds a fortune, and becomes a sleazy, rich tycoon (cowboy hat and all). He then watches people around him take his wealth away. It’s a dorky, absurd daydream that also speaks to American wealth, masculinity, and ambition – which ultimately lands on a bottle of body wash. 

"Master Craftsman" plays it differently. It’s Kung Fu meets shaving. An apprentice studying the art of ‘a close shave’ under the tutelage of a master woodworker. Our man devotes most of his life to ‘mastering his craft’ with a sensei who is hard to please. During the course of 900 chairs and 20 years, he has a breakdown or two. Kesh slices you with humor, treating the obsession with Martial Arts precision. 

Both were developed in close collaboration between Kesh and Harry's Head of Creative, Robert Thompson. A direct partnership between director and creative that gave the work room to breathe. Together the two films illustrate the extent of Kesh's vibrant imagination and establish a new visual era for Harry's. 

Golden LA handled the project end-to-end: concepting, live action, and post. A week of shooting on location in Cape Town gave the production the visual range both scripts required, including the period wardrobe, production design, and performance needed to carry "Filthy Rich" across several decades. 

"It’s rare in the commercial space that you get to romanticize a brain fart. Robert Thompson at Harry’s approached me with the notion that Harry’s can’t change who you are. So together we wrote these exaggerated fantasy lives that don’t quite amount to much. I wanted to reveal our characters through the chaos of their imaginations. The films flow like a stream of consciousness. Instead of objective reality, every scene is painted by an average mind. A guy who barely passed history imagines himself as a decades-spanning oil tycoon. Another watched way too many Kung Fu films and dreams up the life of a master woodworker. Did we need to have an ADHD-tangential daydream to understand that razors or body wash can’t change our lives? No. But the point hits a lot stronger with it." says Kesh.

“A unicorn assignment from the CCO and creative team at Harry’s. Saman was invited early into the process to help develop the two pieces of creative which allowed the scripts to evolve in tandem with production realities. It was truly a “hive mind” approach to creative development and production. We never operated in a silo or vacuum. Decisions were made collectively which allowed us to maximize their potential," says Golden LA Managing Director Matthew Marquis. 

Golden LA is a multi-disciplinary studio driven by a roster of live action directors and a collective of designers and visual effects artists. Represented by Hunky Dory, GRG, and Bueno.

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