Building on her formal training, Aine began a decade of practice in all aspects of international commercial film production with DGA award-winning director, Jim Gartner. With the support of Gartner she began her professional commercial directing career. Her directing work took her all over the world through the USA and South America to Europe, the former Soviet Union and Asia, where she developed her mastery of penetrating the unique essence of a “culture” and translating it through a universal form.
In 2007 she began an ongoing tenure as a creative consultant for the Buddhist Kingdom of Bhutan to structure a National Film Policy and incubate Next-Gen Bhutanese Content Creators into a vibrant industry of international repute that affirms and promotes Bhutan’s cultural and artistic expression for the overall social and economic development of the country.
In 2009 Aine produced and directed, The Last Dragon Kingdom, a visual meditation on the nature of change and the Buddhist precept of impermanence, as Bhutan, the last ancient Buddhist Kingdom, enters the modern age. The short film had a stellar run on the international film festival circuit winning many awards, including top honors at CineGear Expo’s A Tribute to the Art of Visual Filmmaking in Los Angeles and provided a multi-platform channel to raise awareness by sharing the story of this unique Buddhist Kingdom with an avid world audience.
In addition to her work in Bhutan, Aine continued her international creative career, carefully choosing her projects. In 2010, she directed an inspirational multi-platform branded content campaign for Olympic Sponsor Johnson & Johnson which followed Sebastian Sasseville as he became the first Canadian with Type 2 diabetes, to summit Mount Everest. This inspiring story premiered at the 2010 Olympic Games in Beijing.
During 2011 and 2012 Aine consulted on two innovative award winning multi-platform, branded content campaigns, The Sony Rocket Project and Sony Project Shiphunt with 180la, for Sony/Intel. In 2013 she consulted on the ground-breaking Find Your Understanding campaign for Expedia. Find Your Understanding was chosen by TED as one of the top 10 commercials worth sharing in 2013 and lead to policy changes in Washington D.C.
In 2014 Aine relocated to the Kingdom of Bhutan and founded the Bhutan Culture Company. The Bhutan Culture Company strives to empower Bhutanese storytellers to preserve their rich cultural heritage and share it with the world audience by integrating the country’s Gross National Happiness Index into an innovative business paradigm.
In early 2016, at the request of advertising agency 180la (2016 winner of the Cannes “Grand Prix For Good” award), Aine returned to the United States to help them develop and execute the paradigm shifting campaign Boost Your Voice: Equal Voting Access for All for Boost Mobile. Aine applied her doing good is good business model to Boost Your Voice and created an innovative multi-platform advertising campaign in the form of a civic action that shone a light on voter inequality and raised voter awareness for the 2016 Presidential Election.
The Boost Your Voice, Equal Voting Campaign for Boost Mobile received the highest honors in Advertising this Year; the “Titanium Lion” at Cannes, the “Grand Clio“, the AICP Next Award “Winner”, the One Show “Gold Pencil”, Ad Age “Campaign of the Year” and the D&AD Impact “White Pencil”. These awards “celebrates game-changers, ideas that break new ground in branded communications; provocative, paradigm shifting, inspiring work that marks a new direction for the industry and moves it forward.” Cannes Jury President Tham Khai Meng said he and his jury, “felt strongly that true integration is about work that cuts through, transcends media and integrates into culture and society,” and described Boost Your Voice as an “incredible piece of work.” (see the complete list under “Accolades”).
Aine has recently launched Lost Continent, a consultancy service that applies her successful, innovative, creative/business model doing good is good business to traditional entertainment and advertising campaigns, to create “commercially successful content that has a positive social impact.”
Currently, Aine is applying her innovative business/creative model “doing good is good business” to her flagship dramatic feature film project, Dragon Girl. Dragon Girl strives to be a commercially successful film project, give support to the Bhutanese film industry and serve as a “brand” ambassador for the Kingdom of Bhutan. Dragon Girl will be the first English language film to be shot entirely on location in Bhutan.
