Nat Livingston Johnson and Gregory Mitnick were this year's winners in the Student Commercial category at the 18th Annual 'Art & Technique of the American Commercial' Show held in June at The Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Kodak hosted Mitnick, Livingston Johnson, and other winners in a dinner, prior to the show's opening. Directing under the moniker 'Peking', they will graduate from New York University in September. Following is a conversation with them about their AICP-winning commercials 'Lost' and 'Champs', their current projects and their future.

Mitnick: Lost is a commercial for Apple iTunes. It documents a frustrating and universal experience: a cell phone has gone missing. The spot's humor hinges on the method by which we've learned to locate missing electronics: call it and it will beep. The look for the spot was inspired by the desolate, quiet beauty of the Catskill Mountains in the midst of winter where most of the action plays out in a single wide shot. There's irony in staging this amidst such a blank landscape.

Bob Gibbons is director of marketing and communications for Kodak Digital Cinema.  His talent seems to be to listen to what people say, to write it down, to rewrite it until he understands it, and then to share it with others.  He has turned this ability – which he calls ‘portable ignorance’ -- into a 40-year career at Kodak.