Robert Wherry
Owner/Executive Producer, Assembly Films
An award-winning producer who has spent his career launching and nurturing some of the commercials industry’s most illustrious directing talents, Robert Wherry recently opened New York based creative boutique Assembly Films. With a roster comprised of directors Kevan Bean, Craig Brownrigg, Carolyn Chen, and Jorn Haagen, Assembly Films has already amassed some impressive credits: a Michelob campaign featuring Lance Armstrong and directed by Haagen that aired on this year’s Superbowl and the Academy Awards (another Haagen-helmed Assembly project, for Jamaica Tourism, aired on game day, and he’s completed a MasterCard project as well). Bean’s first assignments at Assembly are for Pizza Hut, Walmart, and Campbell’s; Brownrigg, an award-winning up-and-comer from Canada, is in LA on his first Assembly project, for Fazoli’s; Chen is currently helming projects for Alamo Rental Cars and North Shore Hospital for the company.
Robert’s career as a commercials agent began in 1990, when he became a director’s rep with then top award winning company London based BFCS. Noting the sign of great management and a source of pride, Wherry attests that “You know when you’ve done a good job when the directors with whom you’ve worked are more famous than you are.” Amongst the talented group that Robert brought to market and/or developed under a few different company banners (notably HKM and GO film) are Simon McQuoid, Mike Mills, Noam Murro, Roman Coppola, Jesse Dylan, Allan Van Rijn, Bob Brooks, Andrew Douglas, Ivan Zacharias, and Michael Haussman.
The GO film team took the Grand Prix at Cannes for their work on Halo 3, one of the numerous awards (including Clios, AICP honors, D&AD) and industry accolades that have been bestowed upon Robert’s work and his directors throughout his tenure in the business.
Born in Hamilton, Bermuda, Robert Wherry attended the University of Tennessee before moving to New York City to celebrate the works of Shakespeare – however indirectly – through appearances on soap operas, and in commercials. Shying away from the hot glare of celebrity, he toured for a while playing the trumpet and French horn.
Robert is a polite and distinguished gentleman, who nurtures talent and encourages excellence. At 6’1″, Robert Wherry appears taller than he actually is.
June 15, 2010
Read More »Ford F-150 Commercial Shot on Spec – Pete Erickson’s “Road Less Traveled”
Traverse City native Pete Erickson taps into his Michigan roots and brings his deft commercial directing skills to this spec spot for the Ford F-150.
In “The Road Less Traveled,” Director/Co-Writer Erickson takes the Ford F-150 over one of the most grueling test roads in the world. From the shooting style and editorial, to the dead-on perspective of on-camera talent Rick Titus, this seems to be the kind of commercial or web film the automaker SHOULD do for the Ford F150. But Erickson accomplished this spot on his own, with no involvement or support from the brand. We’re not sure what’s more amazing – that Ford’s marketing people and agencies had nothing to do with this, or that he hit the nail so firmly on the head without them. As the director explains it, this piece is about “a truck, a camera, and a 3/4 mile stretch of hell.” Erickson has mastered all three.
“The Road Less Traveled” is part of a series of Ford-inspired films (hyperlink) by Erickson, whose spec work also includes a spot for the Traverse City Film Fest.
Director: Pete Erickson
DP: Patrick Pask
Producer: Sean Wilson
Written by: Pete Erickson, Sean Wilson, Rick Titus, Jay Dalton
Traverse City Film Festival Opener is for (Movie) Lovers
Shot on spec, this Traverse City Film Festival opener makes a “Garbage Man” the star of his own commercial.
As director Pete Erickson puts it, “This shows the even the ‘grey people,’ people you don’t normally see yet are right in front of your eyes, have more going on in their head than they are given credit for. We watch as this garbage man, who is a big movie buff and no doubt loves a good movie festival, tries to answer the age-old question, ‘What’s your favorite movie?’ Not as easy as it seems.”
Actually, over here we prefer to tell people what our favorite movie is NOT. For example, our favorite movie is NOT “Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man.” See how easy? (no offense to Mickey, of course. “Pope of Greenwich Village” and “Diner” are both in our Top Ten)
Director: Pete Erickson
Writen by: Kiff Vanden Heuvel
DP: Rich Brauer
Producer: Pete Erickson & Lars Kelto
The Next Visionary Commercial Director: Brendon DeVore
I’ve known Brendon DeVore for several years now, and, with the premiere of his new short film, “Duel of the Overmen”, he is a young talent tailor-made for this forward-thinking, industrious, and inventive time in advertising.
I came to know Brendon not via my perspective as a publicist but as an artist. I’ve had the privilege of working with him as a performer and writer in numerous online videos, such as “Duardo’s Brand,” and featured his Lexus spec spot, “Weapon of Choice,” in our Aspiring Directors Initiative back in 2007.
I’ve been so impressed with his instincts, professionalism, wit, and ingenuity, that last year I brought Brendon on board at Raging Artists to supervise our original video content (his most recent directing/editing project in that regard was the Launch Party for digital color correction boutique New Hat). 
We now congratulate Brendon on “Duel of the Overmen,” a quirky, imaginative, and, yes, visionary piece. Set in 2083 (that’s visionary, by definition!), the short film imagines an alternative universe in which a plot is afoot to assassinate the third clone of Adolf Hitler. If that’s not unusual enough, in this world the only honorable way to settle a dispute is a duel to the death. Some have described it as a cross between “Tron” and “Inglourious Basterds.”
The “Overmen” site explains that “Visually, the world of the Overmen represents a 1980′s version of the future, as communicated through the wardrobe, the score, and the effects aesthetic, which brings to mind some of the great science fiction films of the 70′s and 80′s.”
But truly, to understand and appreciate the unique vision of Brendon DeVore, you need to experience the film itself.
“Duel of the Overmen” premiered at Hollywood DI on The Lot in Los Angeles January 9, and will be making the festival rounds. Stay tuned for info on future screenings.
Read More »The brands that decorate our lives
Do you have art in your home? Chances are you do. But you don’t need to be an art collector, in the know, or own an original Picasso sketch to be surrounded by art. The reality is, all of us are completely surrounded by art and design in our homes – even if our walls are bare.
Through commerce and our mass-produced culture almost every aspect of our lives has been professionally and deliberately designed. The packaging for the food we eat, the furniture we sit on, the cars we drive, the clothes we wear – and of course the information we receive through our TVs, computers, or phones – are all in their own ways works of art.
For the sake of demonstration I thought I’d focus on one small part of my own life to explore the artfulness that surrounds me and the power of the brands that live in my own home.
Do I wear the art of the packaging and does it say something about me similar to the way my fashion does? By documenting the items that I recycle in my home on a daily basis I found myself, not only hyper-aware of what I eat, but also thinking about which items are so well branded and designed that only a small portion of the logo art or packaging is needed in order to identify the brand.
Through color, form, type - and design in general – these elements are imprinted in our memories and are a part of our homes. Reading the letters "llogg" written out only holds a certain amount of meaning, but seeing them in that unmistakable red swoopy script it’s clear that I need to put cereal on my grocery list, and yes someone in my household loves their sugary breakfasts.
If you work in the advertising or marketing industry, you may see these things through a different lens – it’s work, competition, inspiration, and maybe art. For the majority of American’s it’s just there – never really consciously addressed one way or another – and for others it’s a nuisance, graffiti cluttering up their personal space.
How do you feel about the branded art that lives in your home? Do you appreciate it for the art that it is? What sort of picture does it paint of you? And, as we enter a new year, what will be the next brands to decorate your life?
Read More »BMW M3 Film: Bandito’s Jacob Rosenberg Talks Tech
As fans drive Mouse McCoy’s BMW M3 spec past 400,000 views on YouTube alone, Jacob Rosenberg, Director & CTO of Bandito Brothers, offers some technical insight into the creation of “Living in the Lights”:
Read More »BMW M3 Rolls Out of Bandito’s Garage
Consider this spec for the BMW M3 the ultimate in high-end user-generated content. Inspired by his affection for his own M3, creator/director Mouse McCoy wanted to play out this car fantasy, combining adrenaline-pumping and arresting visuals in a film that doesn’t take itself too seriously. Not only does this work capture the feeling Mouse describes as "Living in the Lights," it’s a perfect example of what Bandito’s Garage - Bandito Brothers‘ one-stop automotive production shop – can do in-camera, with a few people, a lot of passion, and no barriers. This home-made print and broadcast campaign is arguably competitive with work attempted on a much larger scale, with less spectacular results, and at far greater cost.
BMW "Living in the Lights"
Production: Bandito’s Garage
Creator/Director: Mouse McCoy
Director of Photography: Vic Huber
Editor: Steve Prestemon
Producer: Sumer Friedrichs
The Car: BMW M3
The Driver: Greg Tracy
The Girl: Niki Huey
Guitar Hero Gets Animated on Spec
Playing for Change
http://playingforchange.com/pop2.html
Update: the "Playing for Change" soundtrack debuted at #10 on the Top 40, and the May 28, 2009, issue of Rolling Stone covered the album in its Chart Watch section. An interview with the project’s creator reveals that street performer Roger Ridley was the inspiration for the entire recording.
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Viral Video Success: The Anatomy of a Viral that Worked
It was in November of 2006 that we posted the first viral video on RagingArtists.com.
As part of an initial Web Campaign for PF Flyers, SLAM (Sportie LA Media) created a two-minute video purporting to be a "lost casting tape" from Martin Scorsese’s 1990 mob classic Goodfellas. It featured an actor auditioning for the Joe Pesci role, delivering the same lines as they might be performed by famous actors of the day, including Al Pacino, Dudley Moore, Sean Connery, and Pesci himself.
We would go on to promote Remington "Fashion Show" from The Viral Factory, which also would prove to be an enduring hit on this site – but there’s a difference between "formal" viral campaigns and grass roots efforts like "Goodfellas Cast Party."
So, thinking it would be interesting to chart the success of this down and dirty endeavor, we traveled to the unofficial SLAM office, in the bar at Raffles L’Ermitage in Beverly Hills, to speak with SLAM Marketing Director Justo Diaz:
Raging Artists: Thanks for inviting us to drinks, Justo.
Justo Diaz: Am I buying? Is that how this works?
RA: You’re the one with the successful viral video.
JD: You know that doesn’t make me rich. It gives me street cred…not much else.
RA: It also makes you smart. So you’re the perfect person to tell us the criteria for a hit viral.
JD: There are too many ways to make a popular viral. The key to a viral’s success, though, is to know what a viral is and what it can potentially do for a business. What distinguishes a Viral from a Web commercial or a Web video is the degree to which it makes an impact and spreads across the Web. In the case of this viral, we wanted to garner search positions for the terms Goodfellas Cast, Goodfellas Audition, and Goodfellas keywords in general. You see, we wanted our target audience to become familiar with the PF Flyers brand by connecting to a cultural icon that this demographic relates to. The Viral was so successful in this regard that – nearly two years later – if you type in Goodfellas Audition, you will get two Google pages full of different iterations of our video. The fact that this video garnered so many Goodfellas keyword positions on google is what made it a viral – in this case.
RA: It seems like many people measure viral success in terms of millions of hits -
JD: Some virals get millions of hits – Will Ferrell’s "The Landlord" video, for instance – and that is what makes them successful. The adage "any press is good press" applies to virals, and the more people who see them the better. However, a brand’s goals and audience may be much more specific than the audience for a comedy video. What most successful virals have in common is that they appear to have little or no connection to the corporate message. That makes them appear to be real and not conjured up by marketers.
RA: Given the fact that many advertisers see creating commissioned content for the Web as a means of keeping costs down, how important is production value?
JD: Production value is actually important, but not in the way most people think. A viral needs to look dynamic, as if it was shot on the spot – without any preparation. It needs to feel "real". For instance, if you caught Britney Spears stealing a pair of sneakers, trampling an elderly person as she ran out the door, you would have a viral. Millions of people would tune in to watch this video because they would automatically assume it was real and shot with a camera phone. Now, if the sneakers she took were clearly Pumas or Nikes, then you might suspect that this is a commercial, but you would still watch, so a viral is what you would have. If the production quality was high, and its stamp sent you to corporate headquarters, you would lose the viral quality and it would just be a commercial. It would take a lot of money to get Miss Spears to steal a pair of Pumas, so production costs would be high, even if the quality was purposely low. In other words, production quality would not be important in this case, but the subject and environment are key components that may cost you some money.
RA: Speaking of budget, is it true that "Goodfellas Cast Party" was essentially shot on spec?
JD: The project fell outside the scope of the planned campaign for PF, so there was no money for production or seeding. But I’d conceived the spot as a means of connecting with a specific demographic, and knew in advance that we would capture and own keywords that dealt with Goodfellas. I also knew in advance that our target demographic loved this movie and all things related to the movie. The success was a byproduct of design.
RA: So you pulled this off with very little money, but money is still important.
JD: Yeah, it’s important. The Coke and Mentos viral was extremely inexpensive in terms of quality, but to orchestrate it well took time and energy. Still, in the end we are talking a fraction of the cost of a real commercial. In the case of Goodfellas, it had to look like it was on film in a real studio. Otherwise, people would not believe this was a real studio-produced audition tape. The sound and background were key elements that made it look and feel real. I guess what I’m saying is that production value may or may not be important. Realism is what you are after. The Goodfellas video looked good – it had to.
RA: So the fact that it looks good has helped the video build momentum over the last couple of years.
JD: Exactly, people continue to link to this video because the debate about whether it was real is still out there. That controversy is what powers the video. The links are what garner Google positions for Goodfellas keywords. Blogs often publish this video when talking about Goodfellas. Bloggers are more powerful than people realize, even now.
Read More »
