Former Dark Light Dir. Returns To Agency Side.
By KATHY DeSALVO
Young & Rubicam (Y&R), Chicago, has hired Mark Figliulo as its chief creative officer. Since early ’98, the Chicago-based Figliulo had been represented as a commercial director by Dark Light Pictures, West Hollywood (SHOOT, 2/13/98, p. 8).
Before he shifted to directing, Figliulo was an ad agency creative. He initially spent three years at the Tokyo office of Leo Burnett Co., working on such business as Lark Cigarettes and Whitehorse Scotch. He then moved to Burnett’s Chicago headquarters for a five-year tenure, serving as a group creative director on the Unocal, Rockport Shoes, Dewars Scotch, True Value and Reebok accounts, among others. He began directing select agency projects during his last four years at Burnett.
Figliulo’s Dark Light tenure was marked by sporadic directing assignments. He said he helmed "a few good spots," perhaps most notably "Timmy" for Big 10 Universities/NCAA out of Burnett. Other directing credits included the spots "Baby" and "Checklist" for Glad, also via Burnett, and several client-direct promos for the FOX network.
Even after throwing his hat into the directing ring, Figliulo explained, he never lost his love of the creative process, which ultimately prompted him to now take the Y&R head creative position. "It was less [a matter of ] problems at Dark Light," said Figliulo, "and more what I was happy doing." He said he began working as a freelance creative in the Chicago market over the past few months primarily because he wanted to be home with his wife and their newborn son.
"I forgot how much I enjoyed the concept end of it," related Figliulo, who said he wasn’t actively looking for an agency job when Y&R/Chicago CEO Howard Breen contacted him a few weeks ago. "Slowly but surely, I started getting back into the more conceptual agency work, and I enjoyed it. The other thing was that I was doing better creative as a creative than I was as a director. Because I was just starting out as a director, I was getting some mediocre-to-bad boards, for the most part."
Figliulo said he intends to continue directing his own work at Y&R when appropriate. Among Y&R/Chicago’s accounts are Sears, Norwegian Cruise Lines, H&R Block, Barilla Pasta and Rayovac batteries.
Figliulo, who officially starts at Y&R on Nov. 15, said he intends to expand the Chicago office as quickly as possible, adding that he’s looking forward to creating his own culture at the shop. "It just seemed like they’re really trying to make things happen there," he said of Y&R. "When there’s a new management shift, things get exciting. It seemed like the right time for me to jump back in, and the right job."
Review: Writer-Director Adam Elliot’s “Memoir of a Snail”
It's not your typical stop-motion film when characters name pets after Sylvia Plath and read "The Diary of Anne Frank" โ or when the story's inspired by a quote from existentialist thinker Sรธren Kierkegaard. And it's certainly not your typical stop-motion film when you find yourself crying as much as the characters do โ in their case, with huge droplets leaking from bulging, egg-shaped eyes so authentic-looking, you expect the screen to get wet. But those are just a few of the unique things about Adam Elliot's "Memoir of a Snail," a film that's as heart-tugging as it is technically impressive, a work of both emotional resonance and great physical detail using only clay, wire, paper and paint. One thing Elliot's film is not, though, is for kids. So please take note before heading to the multiplex with family in tow: this film earns its R rating, as you'll discover as soon as young Grace, voiced by Sarah Snook, tells us she thought masturbation was about chewing your food properly. Sex, nudity, drunk driving, a fat fetish โ like we said, it's R-rated for a reason. But let's start at the beginning. In this, his seventh "clayography" (for "clay" and "biography"), the Australian writer-director explores the process of collecting unnecessary objects. Otherwise known as hoarding, it's something that weighs us down in ways we can't see, for all the clutter. Elliot also argues that it helps us build constrictive shells around ourselves โ like snail shells, perhaps. Our protagonist is Grace Pudel, voiced with a quirky warmth and plenty of empathy by the wonderfully agile Snook. We first encounter Grace as a grown woman, telling her long, lonely life story to her pet garden snail, Sylvia (named after Plath), at a moment of deep sadness. Then we flash... Read More