Annabel Jankel

Annabel Jankel is a British TV and film director. She first started as a music video director and the director and co-creator of Max Headroom, a fictional artificial intelligence character. Annabel Jankel was born on 1st of June in the year 1955 at London in England. She started her career as a director from the year 1978 and still active in the field. Annabel Jankel has a sister Chaz Jankel who is a musician and songwriter and a member of the new wave band named Ian Dury & The Blockheads. In the 1950s, Annabel Jankel collaborated with director Rocky Morton and founded a company called Cucumber Studios based in the UK which is a film production company. They were introducing new ideas to the field through the emerging art of computer graphics, live action, and animation. This combo produced music videos, TV title sequences, and TV commercials.

They have created music videos of artists like Elvis Costello for Accidents Will Happen, Rush for The Enemy Within, Tom Tom Club for Genius of Love, Talking Head for Blind, Pleasure of Love for Don't Say No, Miles Davis for Decoy and Donald Fagen for New Frontier. Jankel and Morgon have even won the Emmy Award for the title sequence of Friday Night Videos, an NBC show in the year 1985. In the same year, their work for the commercial of a soft drink named Quatro was recognized at the British Television Advertising Awards. In the year 2003, the Museum of Modern Arts set an exhibition of Golden Oldies Of Music Video. The music video of Elvis Costello for Accidents Will Happen which was done by Jankel and Morgon found itself in the showcase as one among 35 videos. Jankel and Morgon then wrote a book on the history and future of computer graphics in a book called Creative Computer Graphics in the year 1984.

The creation of the fictional artificial intelligence character Max Headroom by Jankel and Morgan became very influential in the science fiction TV in the 1980s and impacted the culture. This lead a way to the creation of a television movie Max Headroom: 20 Minutes into the Future which was directed by the duo. After this, they received an offer to direct another film in Los Angeles called D. O. A. having Meg Ryan and Dennis Quaid in the cast which is a remake of an old movie released in 1949 by the same name. They then directed the movie Super Mario Bros. Later, Annabel Jankel directed commercials for clients like Coca-Cola, Sealy, Bud Light, Bacardi, AOL and many more. She has won many advertising awards like World's Best-Humor Commercial, Best Directed Commercial, Best of Show and Best TV Commercial Campaign.