Straight from the heart
By Millie Takaki
At press time, director Bob Ebel was in Greenville, S.C., in the midst of what was shaping up as a multi-spot campaign for The Children’s Museum out of Greenville agency Brains on Fire. The job marked Ebel’s first since joining production house STORY, bicoastal and Chicago, but more significantly the work was his first since undergoing heart surgery.
Perhaps best known for his work in commercials featuring children, Ebel himself feels like a youngster again, having made a remarkably quick recovery after receiving a new heart valve and aortic sleeve. “It’s probably the best I’ve felt in 15 years. I lost weight, I’m pain free and feel like a new person. My stamina is unreal. I’m just grateful to be healthy and back doing what I love to do,” he relates, crediting the cardiology team at Loyola University Hospital in Chicago.
Indeed Ebel is no worse for wear after several 10-hour days encompassing casting and callbacks in Atlanta and Greenville. During those sessions, he elicited spontaneous yet relevant “Ebel talk” from a group of youngsters. To ensure that relevance, Ebel told the kids that an adult museum is being planned because there’s no reason to build a children’s museum. This sparked the youngsters’ imaginations as they offered justification for starting a children’s museum.
Those creatively rich responses will form the backbone of a campaign for The Children’s Museum, which is about to enter the construction phase, with its doors slated to open in about a year.
“It’s a great cause,” says Ebel of the museum. “The whole idea behind it is that a child can be anything he or she wants to be. There will be a TV studio in the museum for kids to produce shows, a race car track set-up so a kid can be an Indianapolis 500 driver, even a working farm, just all kinds of areas for them to learn in and explore.”
The Brains on Fire campaign is designed to raise not only public awareness of the pending project but also some funding for it. “The campaign mantra is that at The New Children’s Museum kids can be anything they want–but you can help by donating,” says Ebel.
The special rapport that Ebel builds with children in his commercialmaking wasn’t lost on Carol Scott, president/CEO of The Children’s Museum. She waited several months for Ebel–first for his schedule to clear, and then for his heart surgery–even though time was of the essence. “That was really gratifying,” says Ebel. “I even recommended some other directors to her but she wanted me for the project.”
That heartfelt commitment made the job especially apropos for the first Ebel would take on following his recuperation. And there’s more spot work to come as STORY has a couple of other directorial gigs for him in the offing.
No longer the boss
Yet another reason this Children’s Museum assignment marks a new chapter in Ebel’s longstanding career is that he’s no longer the boss of his own production house. For the past two decades, Ebel maintained Ebel Productions in Chicago, creating a national brand for that company.
But the opportunity to join STORY was “too good to pass up,” explains Ebel, citing a couple of prime reasons. “For one, [STORY] executive producer Mark Androw is one of the true gentlemen in this business… To have him running the ship and my no longer having to take on those production house ownership/managerial responsibilities is the perfect situation for me at this point. I can fully focus on directing.”
That focus has been crystal clear as he immerses himself in the Children’s Museum assignment. “I’m kind of liking being a hired gun and not being the owner/boss who’s dealing with all these other things,” observes Ebel who knew going into his surgery that he wanted to return as quickly as possible to commercialmaking.
In fact, he wrapped his last job at Ebel Productions, a Boar’s Head shoot for New York agency Altschiller Associates, just a couple of days before going under the knife. “I love what I do and I felt energized by that last job. My intent was always to get back in the game, which I’m now doing.”
Ebel made his first industry mark on the agency side of the business, most notably as a creative director at J. Walter Thompson, Chicago, where he worked for a dozen years on the Oscar Mayer account. He then made the transition to still photographer, and later began shooting what are believed to be the first, if not among the first photomatics.
When his photomatics tested better than the subsequent commercials based on them (and directed by others), Ebel received overtures to make the transition to spot director–but he resisted. “I wanted to be the next Art Kane, the world’s greatest still photographer,” Ebel recalls.
But he finally gave in and directed a spot for a Chicago bank, which went on to garner industry awards. That led to his launching not only his directing career but also Ebel Productions where he helmed assorted award-winning spots over the years.
Among the last jobs that Ebel wrapped under the Ebel Productions banner were the aforementioned Boar’s Head shoot for agency Altschiller Associates, a Stanley Steemer campaign for The Loomis Agency, a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation spot for GMMB and a Georgia Pacific Dixie commercial via Eric Mower & Associates.
Particularly gratifying to Ebel is that he was able to close Ebel Productions while it was on top and that he also managed to help land positions for many of his key staffers. Now via STORY, Ebel gains footholds on both coasts as the company maintains offices not only in Chicago but also in New York and Los Angeles. Furthermore, Ebel now has representation through STORY’s sales force. Remarkably he ascended at and built an identity for Ebel Productions sans any such formal representation.
STORY principal Androw noted that he’s been a long-time admirer of Bob Ebel’s work. “I’ve been whispering in his ear for the past 10 years that if he ever wanted to put his full focus on directing, he would be welcomed here,” relates Androw. “He’s one of the leading commercial directors who not only built brands for his clients but his own company brand as well.”
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Review: Writer-Director Andrea Arnold’s “Bird”
"Is it too real for ya?" blares in the background of Andrea Arnold's latest film, "Bird," a 12-year-old Bailey (Nykiya Adams) rides with her shirtless, tattoo-covered dad, Bug (Barry Keoghan), on his electric scooter past scenes of poverty in working-class Kent.
The song's question — courtesy of the Irish post-punk band Fontains D.C. — is an acute one for "Bird." Arnold's films ( "American Honey," "Fish Tank") are rigorous in their gritty naturalism. Her fiction films — this is her first in eight years — tend toward bleak, hand-held verité in rough-and-tumble real-world locations. Her last film, "Cow," documented a mother cow separated from her calf on a dairy farm.
Arnold specializes in capturing souls, human and otherwise, in soulless environments. A dream of something more is tantalizing just out of reach. In "American Honey," peace comes to Star (Sasha Lane) only when she submerges underwater.
In "Bird," though, this sense of otherworldly possibility is made flesh, or at least feathery. After a confusing night, Bailey awakens in a field where she encounters a strange figure in a skirt ( Franz Rogowski ) who arrives, like Mary Poppins, with a gust a wind. His name, he says, is Bird. He has a soft sweetness that doesn't otherwise exist in Bailey's hardscrabble and chaotic life.
She's skeptical of him at first, but he keeps lurking about, hovering gull-like on rooftops. He cranes his neck now and again like he's watching out for Bailey. And he does watch out for her, helping Bailey through a hard coming of age: the abusive boyfriend (James Nelson-Joyce) of her mother (Jasmine Jobson); her half brother (Jason Buda) slipping into vigilante violence; her father marrying a new girlfriend.
The introduction of surrealism has... Read More