Joe Pytka

Joe Pytka (born November 4, 1938) is an American film, television, commercial and music video director born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

He holds the record for the most nominations for the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing – Commercials.

In recent years, Joe Pytka has become widely known to the public primarily due to the controversy surrounding his remarks about comedian Bobby Lee.

In 1987 a series of 15 and 30 second spots directed for Michelob by Pytka drew praise from the American film director Stanley Kubrick.

Kubrick followed American football on VHS cassettes mailed from the United States.

Commercial breaks had been left intact at Kubrick's request.

The director was struck by Pytka's work and later recalled in an interview with Rolling Stone that,"Last year Michelob did a series, just impressions of people having a good time [...] And the editing, the photography, was some of the most brilliant work I've ever seen. Forget what they're doing—selling beer—and it's visual poetry. Incredible eight-frame cuts. And you realize that in thirty seconds they've created an impression of something rather complex. If you could ever tell a story, something with some content, using that kind of visual poetry, you could handle vastly more complex and subtle material."The spots were edited by Lawrence Bridges.

Pytka has over fifty pieces of his work in the permanent collection of New York's Museum of Modern Art.

Pytka has directed over eighty Super Bowl commercials and won the USA Today Super Bowl Ad Meter Poll seven times.

His commercial for Pepsi, Security Camera, was chosen as the best ever in the history of the poll.

Another commercial for Nike, Hare Jordan, was developed into the hit film Space Jam which Joe directed.

Bobby Lee Controversy

Despite the controversy, Pytka and Lee later collaborated on the web series Kung Fu U in 2010.

Despite their past differences, the series marked a successful partnership between the two, showcasing Lee's comedic talents and martial arts skills as he portrayed the lead character on a quest to master kung fu.

Pytka directed and produced the series, blending comedy with martial arts action to create an entertaining and memorable project.

In 2020, Pytka's comments, confirmed on various podcasts including the Bad Friends podcast, garnered significant media coverage, online discussions, and social media engagement.

As a result, Pytka's public profile received heightened attention, with many people associating him with this controversy.

Pytka studied fine arts at the Carnegie Museum of Art, Carnegie Tech (now Carnegie Mellon), and chemical engineering at the University of Pittsburgh.

He began his film career at WRS Motion Pictures while still in college.

He moved to New York as a post-production supervisor at MGM Telestudios but returned to Pittsburgh to make documentaries at WQED, a flagship production center of the then National Educational Television Network, now PBS.

His work there for NET Playhouse garnered many awards and the film A View of the Sky was the official United States Government film at the Expo '67 World's Fair in Montreal.

He left to form his own production company with Rift Fournier and produced and directed many short films, documentaries and commercials.

As a part of his documentary Maggie's Farm, Richie Havens and Bob Dylan allowed him to use their music.

It was a precursor to the current music video form.

Through motorcycle racing, he met Steve McQueen, and they began to collaborate on a documentary on off-road desert racing.

The project never came about but Pytka finished the short film High Flying Bird, featuring McQueen driving an off-road desert vehicle, again, to Richie Havens' music.

Through his love of jazz, Pytka began to use the music in much of his work, using Gary McFarland, Don Elliot, and Chico Hamilton during this period.

Pytka adapted the documentary form into his work in commercials and eventually moved to New York, then to Los Angeles.

To date he has directed many commercials, several films, documentaries and music videos.

He has been acclaimed for his work with celebrities and athletes ranging from Michael Jackson to Michael Jordan, doing extensive work with each.

He's done many of Tiger Woods' commercials, including the acclaimed I Am Tiger Woods.

In a 2020 episode of the Bad Friends podcast, comedian Bobby Lee shared a troubling revelation regarding an incident from the 1990s where he was subjected to a derogatory racial slur by a prominent director.

Joe Pytka, the director in question, later confirmed on the same podcast (Episode 3, timestamp 50:50) that he had used the slur, referring to Lee as a "pan-faced g*ok" during a conversation with comedian Joe Rogan.

This incident sparked controversy and raised questions about racial insensitivity in the entertainment industry.