rell and David Levine, as great influences. He even earned a living for a while drawing portraits at county fairs, and still refers to himself as a "carny." "[My booth] was in between the guy selling blenders and the guy who takes photos of you in western clothing—you know, those fake sepia prints," he recalls. "I started at five bucks a pop. By the time I was finished, I was charging people up to twenty-five bucks a piece. They actually ended up being pretty good."
After his experience on the midway, Hooper enrolled at the Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, Calif., graduating in ’90. He spent the next five years working as an agency art director, first at Chiat/ Day (now TBWA/Chiat/Day), Los Angeles, then at San Francisco-based Goodby, Silverstein & Partners. "I gave myself a five-year plan," he says. "After five years, my plan was to try directing."
Now that he’s on the other side of the fence, his art director background comes in handy. "It’s easier to put the minds of ad guys to rest when they feel like you understand their problems," says Hooper. "I’m basically a shrink to the guys. I don’t mind that. I do a lot of counseling. I’m saying this a lot: ‘I know, I know, I totally understand.’"
Hooper needed his sense of humor when a recent shoot became difficult. "The set blew away," he says. "We were on a racetrack shooting IKEA’s ["Race Car Pit Stop" via Deutsch, New York], where they decorate a pit stop. We were shooting at this racetrack in Bakersfield, and it was approximately one thousand degrees out there. We were looking at the set with the agency people, sort of getting a thumbs-up or whatever, and suddenly in the distance off to the east, this brown wall of I don’t know what was coming our way. Within about five minutes there was a gale blowing, and the set was sort of chattering across the tarmac. Everything was full of dust and weeds or whatever the hell blows off the desert east of Bakersfield. Everything survived, but it had to be all cleaned—it was full of locusts and dirt, and whatever—but it was OK. Disaster averted."
A feature film could be in Hooper’s future; he’s regularly reading scripts and looking for a project. "There are unfortunately a lot of diabolically awful scripts out there," he says. "But I’d love to do features. Or just be a billionaire."c
