Skibb man wins Emmy for Superbowl advert

A SKIBBEREEN man has won a prestigious Emmy award for a commercial he made which was aired during the Superbowl. 

Brian Carmody said he is still ‘getting over the shock’ of being honoured at the 69th Emmy Awards for his advert which features actor John Malkovich.

His production company Smuggler has enjoyed considerable success including three Palme D’or awards in 2007, 2011 and 2015, which globalised the company.

‘Those awards for Best Production Company in the world were incredible, but the Emmy Award win was an absolute shock,’ said Brian.

‘We had been nominated for an Emmy in 2015 and 2016 and we didn’t win, and I wasn’t expecting us to win this year either, so it was a big shock.’

Although modest, Brian does admit that the award-winning commercial was ‘a very good piece of work.’

Brian said the Emmy win keep the company in the ‘hot seat,’ which is very important not just in terms of PR, but also in terms of the confidence of everyone working within the company.

‘The win was a very proud moment for us, as was our company’s involvement in bringing the film Once to Broadway,’ he said.

Having got a green card over two decades ago, Brian started out painting houses for a couple of weeks in San Francisco with Larry O’Donovan from Skibbereen, before heading to Los Angeles, where he worked in construction for Cathal O’Regan and Timmy O’Donovan, who are also from Skibbereen.

In no time at all, Brian said: ‘I got very lucky. I met someone one night who worked for the best production company in the world, bar none. That was in June 1994. There was a job going at that company as a junior receptionist – and you couldn’t get further down the line than that. 

‘But I knew the moment I walked in the door that I had found something that I was going to really enjoy.’ 

The company, Propaganda Films, was involved in the making of music videos, commercials, short films, and selling them to agencies, record labels and TV stations.

When that company closed in 2001, Brian set up his own company, Smuggler, with his business partner Patrick Milling Smith, and now they employ 50 people in London, New York and LA.

To see the commercial that won Smuggler an Emmy for Best Commercial google Squarespace and John Malkovich.