By Kathy DeSalvo
After five-and-a-half-years as director of broadcast production at FCB Chicago, Florence "Flo" Babbitt is moving over to Publicis & Hal Riney, San Francisco, as senior VP/director of broadcast production.
Babbitt’s last official day at FCB Chicago is March 24; she will begin at the Publicis & Hal Riney office in April. Her signing fills the void left by the departure of former Publicis & Hal Riney director of broadcast production Sam Walsh, who joined bicoastal/international Propaganda Films as general manager of the commercial and music video division in November (SHOOT, 11/12/99, p.1).
"It’s the right thing for me to do, and the right timing for me to do it," said Babbitt. "What [Publicis & Hal Riney] has always stood for has been [to be] a creative-driven place. Scott Marshall, the agency’s president, certainly believes that, and the people I met there believe it as well; it is what Hal [Riney] always intended it to be. So I thought, I wouldn’t mind spending the next period of my life back in the creative environment that I know, and at a creative agency."
Prior to her stint at FCB Chicago, Babbitt was a fixture in San Francisco’s agency community. She spent 12 years at FCB San Francisco, which she joined as a senior producer and became second-in-command at the production department after executive producer Steve Neely (who is now that agency’s director of broadcast production/deputy executive creative director). There, she produced for such accounts as Pacific Bell, California Raisins, Clorox, Teledyne and Levi’s. Prior to that, she produced for three years at Ketchum Advertising, San Francisco, primarily on Clorox.
Babbitt came to FCB Chicago at the invitation of the agency’s then-executive creative director Geoff Thompson, with whom she had worked at FCB San Francisco. (Thompson has since returned to FCB San Francisco, where he now serves as chairman and CEO of the office, and worldwide creative director.) "Geoff had always been the second [in charge] after Mike Koelker [the late former executive creative director at FCB/ S.F.]. When he came to Chicago, the idea was that it was his opportunity to take that head position and see what he could do with it. That was one of Geoff’s selling points to me: the idea that ‘you’ve always been second; now it’s time to step up and be in charge yourself.’ "
Babbitt said she was proud to have helped raise the bar of FCB Chicago’s creative, and was particularly proud of the support she provided its producers. "We’ve given them the support to seek out the best talent to work with, to back them and push the work," said Babbitt. "In the broader perspective, I think I affected producer’s lives on a day-to-day basis in a positive way. I gave them a lot of the experience I’d had in terms of being very collaborative with suppliers. Because of that, the level of work in the last five years has definitely gotten better. I didn’t do it single-handedly; I was just there to help."
Among the accounts she oversaw at FCB Chicago include Gatorade (which Babbitt executive produced for the last three years), Coors Light, Blue Cross/ Blue Shield, Illinois Tourism, Illinois Lottery, Sunkist orange soda, and a number of S.C. Johnson brands including Pledge, Drano, Edge, Glade and Raid.
Babbitt also cited the improvement in the quality of advertising for FCB’s packaged goods accounts as particularly rewarding. "The fact that these people could push the envelope and raise the bar, even a little, is not an easy task. It’s one thing when you have a very creative client like a Levi’s or Nike that’s going to let you run with the ball. But with clients who are conservative and test things, it’s so much harder to fight and really improve that work, and these people did that."
In her role at Publicis & Hal Riney, Babbitt expects to help the production department accommodate the agency’s recent new business, which include Webvan, ReplayTV and Sprint Broadband Wireless Group. "They’re growing like crazy with a lot of dot-com business," said Babbitt. "That’s going to be an interesting challenge: how to staff, how to handle [the accounts] because time frames are much quicker. It’s a different approach for the dot-com companies. I won’t be able to assess the department’s needs until I get there, but we will have to assess if we have enough staff to handle all the business."
Judge Upholds Dismissal Of Involuntary Manslaughter Charge Against Alec Baldwin In “Rust” Shooting
A New Mexico judge has upheld her decision to dismiss an involuntary manslaughter charge against Alec Baldwin in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the set of a Western movie.
In a ruling Thursday, state District Court Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer stood by her July decision to dismiss an involuntary manslaughter charge against Baldwin. She said prosecutors did not raise any factual or legal arguments that would justify reversing her decision.
"Because the state's amended motion raises arguments previously made, and arguments that the state elected not to raise earlier, the court does not find the amended motion well taken," the judge wrote, adding that the request was also untimely.
A spokesperson for Baldwin's lawyers said Friday that they had no immediate reaction to teh decision.
The case was thrown out halfway through trial on allegations that police and prosecutors withheld evidence from the defense in the 2021 death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of the film "Rust."
Baldwin's trial was upended by revelations that ammunition was brought into the Santa Fe County sheriff's office in March by a man who said it could be related to Hutchins' killing. Prosecutors said they deemed the ammo unrelated and unimportant, while Baldwin's lawyers say investigators "buried" the evidence in a separate case file and filed a successful motion to dismiss.
Special prosecutor Kari Morrissey can now decide whether to appeal to a higher court.
Baldwin, the lead actor and co-producer for "Rust," was pointing a gun at Hutchins during a rehearsal on a movie set outside Santa Fe in October 2021 when the revolver went off, killing Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza. Baldwin has said he pulled back the hammer —... Read More