Frank Budgen (director)

Frank Budgen, who lived from 2 October 1954 to 2 November 2015, was a British commercial director and a co-founder of the London film production company Gorgeous Enterprises. After a graphic design course at Manchester Metropolitan University he began as a copywriter at BBDO, then worked at M&C Saatchi and at Boase Massimi Pollitt, where he became a creative director and wrote and directed his first advertisement, for John Smith's Brewery. He left in 1992 to join the Paul Weiland Film Company, shooting campaigns for Orange, 95.8 Capital FM and Holsten, and in 1997 co-founded Gorgeous. His best known commercials are Tag, made in 2001 for Nike, which won the Cannes Lions Grand Prix in 2002, and Mountain, made in 2003 for the Sony PlayStation 2 with 50 stuntmen and acrobats and 500 extras a day, which also won a Cannes Lions Grand Prix. In 2007 the Directors Guild of America voted him commercial director of the year. He died of cancer aged 61.