Rotem Solomon has directed and produced over 150 commercials, short films, and video clips in Israel and abroad, including for top brands and leading singers, among them Mariah Carey, Anna Zak, FILA, McDonald’s, FOREVERMARK, TOYOTA, Michael Kors and more.
He grew up in Kibbutz Tlalim in the Negev, and says he always had a camera in his hand. “I was a kind of weirdo who goes around with a huge camera everywhere… School didn’t interest me, movies were my life”, he testifies. “At the age of 12, my mother’s childhood friend, a top producer named Naomi Shmay, invited me to visit a commercial shooting set. They invited me for a few hours, and I ended up with them for all three shooting days as one of the crew members. I understood that this is what I’m going to do in life”.
He continued to work in productions as a production assistant during school breaks, and sometimes not during breaks. “I would skip school to spend time on set. I went through different roles — I was a production assistant, lighting assistant, camera assistant, cameraman, editor, and finally director”, he recounts. “The crews I started with 17 years ago are the people I work with today, and it’s great fun. Some of them still call me ‘the kid'”.
Solomon has produced and directed over 150 commercials for brands in Israel and abroad, worked with Mariah Carey, judged at the American Producers Association’s AICP Film Festival, and he also lectures at Ron Kadmi’s school and gives a workshop called ‘How to Make Films and Stay Alive’.
“Directing films and producing campaigns is great fun, but it’s also a big responsibility and sometimes feels scary and threatening”, he says about the challenges in the industry. “An advertising move can determine the future of a product or company and a lot of money is invested in it. Every project comes with a lot of pressure and tough decisions that need to be made, and there are many budgetary difficulties that need to be solved creatively. I need to lead the project when sometimes I’m not sure myself if I’m doing the right thing. Everything is on my shoulders. It can feel very lonely sometimes.
“Creation is part of me, I love planning plans and bringing them to life. Every production involves thousands of small details, planning aspects and design and a lot of learning and research. I love aesthetics and I love making things beautiful. When I see the result on television or billboards – it’s a satisfaction that can’t be explained”.
The war caught Solomon in the U.S. “I arrived two weeks before October 7. It’s not easy to watch the news and be here while my brothers and friends are enlisted. I hung signs of the hostages in the neighborhood and also participated in several fundraising evenings where we raised donations for soldiers”, he says, “I wanted to take some part in the effort and this was the little I could do”.
Future plans? “By age 40 I want to be after a series and a full-length film I directed, to manage my own technological venture that will change the advertising field, and to continue teaching – because I really enjoy it.”
