David Storey began his career at the tender age of 16 as host of the CBC youth series Drop In where he acted, sang, played guitar and interviewed guests. He also appeared as a young actor in commercials, TV series and features including Second Wind (Don Shebib) Running (Michael Douglas) and the CBC series For the Record. Finishing high school David realized his true passion lay behind the lens. He enrolled in Ryerson’s RTA program and graduated to take up Assistant Director positions in features and MOW’s including the Terry Fox Story, Ticket to Heaven, Escape from Iran and the TV series War of the Worlds.
Burning the candle at both ends David continued with his musical career playing bars and clubs at night while working on set during the day. He was nominated for a CASBY and a Toronto Music Award. Now Magazine said Storey creates “a beautifully rendered mix of electric/acoustic/ folk rock originals” while Toronto Life Magazine thanked him for “crafting intelligent songs”. His independent singles and EP where played widely on college and cutting edge radio while his video was in high rotation on Much Music.
With a young family to feed David decided to switch gears and focus solely on directing music videos. Right out of the gate he directed Tom Cochrane’s “Life Is A Highway” which garnered him major international attention, a Juno nomination plus a number of Canadian Music Video Awards. Included among the 60 or so videos David directed are Stompin Tom’s Canadian classic “Margo’s Got the Cargo” and Charlie Majors Nashville hit “Drive You Out Of My Mind” both of which won Canadian Music Video Awards. Soon his unique visual style had him directing commercials for clients as varied as McDonalds and the Ontario Lottery Corporation as well as hour long music specials for the major Canadian networks where he collaborated with artists such as Corey Hart, Anne Murray, Shania Twain, Buffy St Marie, the Rankin Family and Amanda Marshal.
Deciding to take a chance David returned to the dramatic roots of his acting and Assistant Director days coproducing and directing “Longboat” a drama about the life of Tom Longboat the First Nation champion marathon runner. This appeared on a number of year end “Best Of “film lists and brought him to the attention of the CBC brass who invited him to direct a new series called Comics. Here he worked with some of Canada’s best and brightest funny men, among them Brent Butt, Ron James and Mark Farrell. From these relationships David helped pitch and create many successful shows for a number of networks. He directed and with Ron James created Blackfly a single camera, film style comedy for the Global network. He directed the multi camera laugh track driven Sean Cullen Show for the CBC. But the granddaddy of them all was the family friendly, film style, hit comedy Corner Gas which he Executive Produced and directed.
David and his friend Brent Butt pitched Corner Gas to the CTV network thinking that if they were lucky they would get one summers work and a few good sod busters (Saskatchewan beer). Six groundbreaking seasons, 107 episodes and many rave reviews later Corner Gas could be the defining Canadian comedy of a generation. Along with an average audience share of 1.52 million, the series was nominated for an International Emmy in 2004, and has won 6 Gemini, 5 Leo, 6 Canadian Comedy, 2 Directors Guild and 3 Writers Guild Awards to-date. The show has been sold to markets across Europe, Australia, the Middle East and the USA. The Storey directed final episode garnered a 2.9 million audience share setting a record for a Canadian scripted show.
As Corner Gas winds down David has been busy as an executive producer on “Keep Your Head Up Kid: The Don Cherry Story” a miniseries for the CBC as well as exec producing and directing “Hiccups” a Brent Butt penned pilot for CTV. David is also in development as director/producer with Paul Quarrington and Virginia Thompson on a feature based on Quarrington’s novel King Leary. He has also been asked to direct Maggie Rose a family friendly feature to be shot in Newfoundland.
This year (2008) David received a Gemini nomination for Best Direction (his 3rd Gemini direction nomination). He has also won 2 Leo, 3 Canadian Comedy and 1 Director’s Guild awards for directing.
