L.A.-based manager and executive producer Randi Wilens signed Maxxis the moment she saw his demos. “His reel just spoke to me,” says Wilens, whose agency has been involved in shoots for the likes of Shania Twain, Lenny Kravitz and Beyonce. “He has a very unique cinematic style, a very interesting and hypnotic type of shooting, and possesses an abstract sense of storytelling.”
Maxxis has a future in feature films, too, says Wilens. His third effort with Ours, Worst Things Beautiful, shot in Spain, looks “just stunning, very epic and colourful with lots of landscapes and street scenes.” In fact, this month Maxxis is in Memphis, writing a feature film with long-time video director David Hogan (Sheryl Crow, Dave Matthews Band, Goo Goo Dolls).
For all the fuss, Maxxis seems well-adjusted as he relaxes in an Old Strathcona coffee shop. With his laptop and BlackBerry always within reach, his square-rimmed glasses and a wool cap evoke only a subtle sense of hipness. Between sips of cappuccino, he talks rapidly but humbly, as if trying to keep his enthusiasm surrounding his career in check. He’s busy, he says, but “there’s also a lot of debt that I’ve accumulated by building my own resume. I’m not about to start buying condos and expensive cars until I’ve settled my debts.”
He’s no financial rookie, thanks to his father, a successful construction company owner in Edmonton. (“I’d ask him for a toy and he’d ask me to write him a business plan in return,” recalls Maxxis.) That taught him that if you want something, you have to give something. So to learn about directing, he hired accomplished local cinematographer Peter Wunstorf for shoots – and then picked his brain.
Maxxis’s first big taste of capitalism came while working at Sorrentino’s as a busboy, when he persuaded his boss to start a valet service. It quickly expanded across the city – and then to the Dominican Republic, where Maxxis was a work-experience intern for Gold’s Gym.