Dario Piana

After a 20-year absence from feature filmmaking, veteran commercial director Dario Piana has helmed two horror movies since 2007. The first, "The Deaths of Ian Stone," which was co-produced by the late special effects icon Stan Winston, tells the story of an American expatriate living in Britain, who must relive being killed by strange, shadowy creatures, every day. The second is a continuation of the popular "Lost Boys" franchise that began in 1987, "Lost Boys: The Thirst," in which the intrepid Frog brothers, Alan and Edgar, pursue vampires across California. Although Piana directed a feature film called "Too Beautiful to Die" in the mid-1980s, he tends to speak dismissively of it, citing modest means and poor critical reception. Since the 1980s, Dario Piana has built a career directing over 400 commercial spots for a wide variety of industries, including automobiles (Toyota, Mercedes-Benz, BMW), home appliances (Whirlpool), fashion (Moschino), and soft drinks (Fanta), as well as writing scripts for Italian television. Like many directors who began in advertising, Piana's work displays a keenly creative visual sense, which he honed as an artist and illustrator, well before he started directing. Above and beyond his natural talent, Piana has deliberately enriched his visual sense by studying the work of Enki Bilal, Moebius, and Tanino Liberatore, among others; the influence of these visionary artists weighed heavily on his commercials and, subsequently, his features.