Vesa Manninen is a Finland-born DGA commercial director rostered at Steam Films (Toronto and Vancouver), with alignment to HOBBY and Germany’s Tony Petersen Film. Trained at the Turku Academy of Arts with a Master’s in screenwriting from Tampere University of Applied Sciences, he has been a DGA member since 2012 and founded Jojimbo Film. His reel spans Nintendo of America, McDonald’s, Birra Moretti, Acura, ADT, Orangina, Poste Italiane, Reale Mutua, Paper & Packaging, Canada Post, BMO, Prisma, Arla, Holland Casino, Travelocity, and others. Performance-led comedy and dialogue define key spots: ADT’s paranoid couple film, a long Nintendo kid monologue, and McDonald’s kids-versus-parents “Are We There Yet?,” an Epica Gold winner in 2012. Community storytelling includes Poste Italiane’s travelling-camera Rome portrait and Birra Moretti village fables. Acura “Sanctuary” is a Hitchcockian car-as-refuge film shot in downtown LA and at Paramount. He blends practical effects and puppets with CGI—building a real B-movie monster for a Swedish Battery Collection PSA, operating a live puppet as reference for Paper & Packaging’s CG box, and staging large Thailand practical builds for Reale Mutua.