DALLAS-Following a high profile career as an agency producer at such shops as Portland, Ore.-based Wieden & Kennedy and San Francisco-based Hal Riney & Partners (now Publicis & Hal Riney), John Adams has thrown his hat into the directing ring by signing with Santa Monica-based spot production company Area 51 Films.
The Dallas-based Adams has actually been directing full-time since last September, when he resigned his position as head of production at DDB Needham Dallas (SHOOT, 9/11/98, p 1). In these last nine months, he has built an impressive reel of spots, the majority of which were produced by Dallas-based Concrete Productions, with whom Adams had maintained an informal working arrangement.
Adams’ directorial spot credits at Concrete included: "Three Hour Tour" for Western Union via Lowe & Partners/SMS, New York; "Flowers, Donations, Souvenirs" for Cheap Tickets via Colby Effler & Partners, Santa Monica; "Money Maze" and "Lotto TV" for the Texas Lottery via GSD&M, Austin; "Clean House" for Publix Supermarkets via WestWayne, Tampa; and "Whiplash" for Cherokee Casino via Ackerman McQueen, Irving, Texas. The latter was a finalist at this year’s One Show.
Acknowledging that Concrete did a "wonderful" job for him, Adams credited that company’s executive producer Steve Johnson and its East Coast rep Maggie Klein as being instrumental in "helping me get so far so fast." But, he explained, he joined Area 51 primarily because of his longstanding relationship with that shop’s executive producer, Mark Thomas.
Thomas has actually been a client of Adams, back when the former handled West Coast and Midwest sales at Hollywood-headquartered Stiefel & Company. Adams used then-Stiefel director Steve Tobin on several jobs. At Hal Riney & Partners, Adams served as senior producer on the infamous Old Milwaukee Swedish Bikini Team campaign, directed by Tobin. At Wieden & Kennedy, Adams also produced a Tobin-directed Subaru spot. (Tobin is now at Los Angeles-based Scream.)
"Mark is someone I’ve known for a really long time," said Adams. "I’ve seen him work with a couple directors who ended up doing really nice work; people like Steve Tobin and Jon Francis. It would be nice to have that kind of success. I’m hoping that I’ll get greater exposure in more markets, particularly out on the West [Coast]; because I lived and worked out there for a long time; that’s an area that’s pretty special to me."
Thomas believes he can help Adams achieve that success. "My goal for him is pretty straightforward," said Thomas, "and that’s to work on strong, simple concepts for creative agencies. Hopefully, with our sensibility to career development, that’s what we’ll accomplish for him."
When Thomas first saw Adams’ reel at the beginning of the year, he was struck by the skill of the fledgling director. "There was a genuine recognition that he has a gift at this," said Thomas. "His talent is developing at a much better clip than others often would. That prompted me to say, "This could be really special.’ "
Adams started out as a producer at Foote, Cone & Belding, San Francisco, where he worked on campaigns for Levi’s, Taco Bell, Pacific Bell and the Cali-fornia Raisins. He went on to Hal Riney & Partners, where he worked on the launch of the Saturn campaign in addition to the aforementioned Old Milwaukee account.
In ’91, Adams began a two-and-a-half-year stint at Wieden & Kennedy, where his credits included spots for Subaru and Nike. In ’93, he took a position as director of broadcast production at Atlanta-based Tucker Wayne/Luckie & Company (now WestWayne). In Aug. ’95, he assumed the head production post at DDB Dallas (SHOOT, 9/15/95, p.7), where his highlights included executive producing the spot "Mosquito" for McIlhenny Tabasco Sauce, which won a ’97 Cannes Gold Lion (and was directed by Dick Buckley who is now helming spots independently).
At DDB, Adams completed his first directing assignment in early ’97: a Texas Christian University spot created as a sideline project by two DDB creatives (SHOOT, 1/10/97, p.7). He continued to helm select spots for the agency, working primarily on those saddled with a tight budget. Among these were spots for the Dallas Morning News, a Big Brothers of America PSA and a four spot package for Dallas PBS affiliate KERA-TV that included "Joy of Painting," which made SHOOT’s "The Best Work You May Never See" gallery (SHOOT, 8/21/98, p.18).
To date, most of Adams’ work has been humor/dialogue although the director doesn’t want to confine himself to comedy. "I like anything where there’s storytelling and performance," said Adams. "I like jobs where actors get to say things."
At press time, Adams was in the process of shooting a Concrete-produced job for Settlement Capital out of Socket (a division of Temerlin McClain, Irving, Tex.). He said other Concrete projects are pending. In addition, he said he was also considering if he will formalize an arrangement with Toronto-based Industry Pictures for Canadian work; earlier this year, Industry produced two Canadian-airing Bud Light spots that Adams directed.
Adams joins an Area 51 directorial roster also composed of Ali Selim, Robert Davidson, and Paul Hopkins. The company is repped by Connie Mellors on the West Coast, Chicago-based Doug Stieber & Associates in the Midwest, Dallas-based Alyson Griffith in the Southeast and Southwest, and New York-based Heidi Gottlieb and Doug Wedeck on the East Coast.
