How Misko Iho Makes Epic Spots With Famous IPs

The Wild Gift director infuses wonder into promos for Tim Hortons, Disney and more

Donuts fly through the air and strange apparitions spring to life in the Tim Hortons’ spot below. Is it just a typical night shift at the Canadian coffeehouse—or AI?

In fact, it’s neither. Wild Gift director Misko Iho conjured up classic F/X magic to hype the brand’s Harry Potter TV show tie-in. His approach feels vaguely retro, promising the kind of enchantment only deep-fried, sugar-frosted treats can provide.

“I love practical filmmaking, but I don’t think we should try to find a way around any technology that helps me realize the story in my head,” Misko, who worked with GUT Toronto on the commercial, tells Muse.

“Early filmmakers used glass matte paintings, miniatures, stop-motion, mirrors, rear and front projection, forced perspective,” he says. “Lucas, Cameron and Jackson used every trick in the book and still had to build digital tools to transfer the pictures in their minds onto the screen.”

“I see AI next in that line. Cameron wrote Avatar in the mid-’90s and waited about 15 years for the tools to catch up. I bet a lot of scripts are dusted off with AI for the same reason.”

We spent a few minutes with Misko to learn more about his background, inspirations and creative process.

Where did you grow up, where do you live now, and how do the two compare?

I grew up in Helsinki and have lived in Los Angeles since 2015. Finland is smaller, more intimate and introverted with dry, deadpan humor, saunas and sisu (stubborn grit). The U.S. is bigger, more extroverted and social. Fewer people speak Finnish. Everybody speaks cinema. I once got handed a full feature film screenplay from a homeless man. More earthquakes. Tougher competition, but more opportunity—especially for the kind of extraordinary stories I like to tell. Bigger budgets here mean more resources and fewer restrictions on set. The smaller Finnish scale taught me speed and agility. I love both.

Was there an “a-ha” moment in your life that made you realize what you wanted to do?

Not really. I just went all-in on whatever I was excited about at the time—I still do—and each stage opened the next door. Graffiti as a kid led to computer graphics on a friend’s PC, which led to Tim Sweeney hiring me at 17 to draw graphics for Epic Pinball at Epic Games. That pulled me into visual effects, then into directing commercials and music videos.

One moment kind of qualifies, though. In 2010 I wrote and directed my first short, “The Patient.” Fifteen minutes long. I couldn’t get it financed so I paid for it myself and shot it with a small crew in a 21-hour stretch. When I was looking at the monitor and the actors spoke my words and the characters came alive, I felt it: This is what I want to do.

Tell us about some recent projects you’re especially proud of.

As a fan of Potter, I feel pretty good about the way we managed to create a little unseen moment for Tims that also balances the grammar of the darker films and the cleaner forthcoming show. Also, a Disney commercial for Mickey’s Toontown at Disneyland comes to mind—classic 2D characters like Mickey and Donald in a live-action environment, Roger Rabbit-style, which I’ve always wanted to do. We worked with Walt Disney Animation Studios animators led by veteran Eric Goldberg, who still draws on paper, then digitized those characters and composited them into our live-action plates with Blockhead VFX in New Zealand. I think we did justice to the classic hand-drawn characters holding up against the live-action and the real actors.

What creative hill would you die on?

Protecting the big picture. The film can evolve, and I’m always looking for ways to improve it until it’s aired. But in commercial filmmaking there are often many voices in the room—agency, client, legal, the group chat—each looking at the film from its own angle, and the big picture gets lost. A change that helps one shot or scene in isolation can quietly weaken the rest of the film. That’s especially true with beloved IPs like Marvel, Star Wars, Disney or Harry Potter, when the characters are ones that people grew up with, and the job is to make something that feels like it belongs in those canons. I’m collaborative, but I push to keep every decision pointed at the film as a whole: story, tone, continuity, how the pieces work together.

What’s your take on old-school filmmaking vs. AI?

When ILM put dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, stop-motion took a hit but never died. Filmmakers still use practical effects like puppets—Project Hail Mary, The Odyssey. That’s a choice of tools—shoot on film or digital, use a location or build on stage, animation, CG or AI. Art has no limits. Whatever you need to tell your story.

The upside is creative freedom. A lot of technical and financial walls that used to stop people with strong ideas from making films are getting lower. You don’t always have to sell the vision to a room that may not get it. A lot of great scripts die in those rooms. Technical execution is getting easier. That leaves the part that matters most: the story. So, the question isn’t which tools you use. It’s: If you can tell any story, which one will you tell?

How did you first get interested in film?

I’ve always loved going to the movies and burned through stacks of VHS tapes and DVDs in my youth. The first hook in the industry came at the end of the ’90s, when my uncle offered me an internship in one of Finland’s first digital post-production houses as a visual effects artist. I worked on hundreds of projects over a 6- or 7-year stretch and edited music videos like Darude’s “Sandstorm.”

After I started directing—dozens of commercials, and about two dozen music videos that became a kind of film school—I fell in love with the process, the history and every part of the craft. Books about films, storyboards, production design and film history started piling up on the bookshelf. The walls filled with movie posters and old film press photos. The deeper I got into making films, the more I fell in love with cinema. I’m still on that road and just ran out of wall space.

What’s a movie set you wish you got to visit in real life?

I’d love to walk the courtyard of Rear Window, one of my favorite Hitchcock pictures. Tati’s Playtime—a whole city built to walk through. Burton’s Gotham City for Batman. Cameron’s underwater set for The Abyss in an old nuclear facility. Jeunet’s The City of Lost Children. Alex Proyas’ Dark City. The Nostromo corridors and the Space Jockey on Scott’s Alien. Kubrick’s 30-ton centrifuge in 2001, Lockwood strapped in upside down, Dullea coming down the hub ladder.

If I must pick one though, I’d go back in time to 1902. Georges Méliès’ glass studio in Montreuil. One of the first proper movie sets ever built. Iron and glass, painted backdrops, trapdoors in the floor, sunlight for a lamp. Would be amazing to witness him making A Trip to the Moon, the first science-fiction film of all time.

What is your favorite film?

Alien. It’s the film I’ve rewatched the most and it only gets better. I especially love the opening. Jerry Goldsmith’s minimal score. Haunting, eerie. The camera drifts through empty corridors, beautiful production design, the drinking bird bobs, a draft lifts a scrap of paper. Nothing happens for the longest time, and you’re still glued to the screen. The computers come alive, the crew wakes up, slowly—and I must watch the rest.

I’m drawn to the simplicity of it. Isolation: one ship, one threat, in space. Like Jaws, the danger is there even when you barely see the monster. No CG, everything feels real. Ridley Scott built claustrophobic intensity with a great authentic cast who play it straight. Sigourney Weaver as Ripley—one of the first truly strong, believable female action leads. It still easily stands against modern sci-fi.

Favorite director?

Steven Spielberg. Not because he’s “the best” in some ranking. But because he directed so many films I grew up with, and that are still among my favorites: Jaws, Close Encounters, E.T., Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jurassic Park, The Goonies, Back to the Future. He has built worlds where I wanted to live. Even today, his work carries this classic theatrical wonder and craftsmanship no matter the genre, this obvious love of cinema that I still aspire to.

You’ve got 2 minutes with the industry. What’s your hot take?

Take full advantage of the director from the first draft through post—not just through wrap. In features, no director clocks out when the camera wraps. The cut, the VFX, the grade and the score are the same movie. I love every part of that process, and I’m already planning how those pieces fit when I read the script and prep the boards. Commercials work the same way. They just often aren’t treated that way. When post becomes a handoff, the pieces often get solved one at a time and the big picture can be lost.

A commercial has a lot of voices in the room, and most of them are looking at one piece. The director can hear all of them and keep the cut, the effects, the grade, and the score aimed at the same film. Isolated tweaks can make one piece of the film better. The director’s job is to make sure all the pieces still play as one.