Director Den-nis Gallegos has signed with New York-based eo productions for commercial representation.
At his new roost, Gallegos has already directed a Welch’s Grape Juice campaign consisting of the spots "Excuse Me," "Nice and Slow," "Follow My Taste" and "Tricky," via Jordan McGrath Case & Partners/Euro RSCG, New York.
A Southern California resident, Gallegos is also the owner/CEO of Tepper Gallegos Casting, Los Angeles, and Tepper Gallegos Workshops, which offers acting classes. Tepper Gallegos opened in 1979, and Gallegos has since cast some 3,000 commercials.
Gallegos’ casting prowess proved to be his launch pad into directing. In ’96, Abby Flanagan, then a producer with Jordan McGrath, asked Gallegos, by then a well-known casting director, to conduct a nationwide search for the new Welch’s Grape Juice "spokeskid." At the time, no director was attached to the project. Explained Gallegos, "They had said to me, ‘Just get out on the road and start looking. As we get closer to finding a child, we’ll decide on a production company.’ So I sent tapes back from Chicago or Des Moines, and they asked if that was, in fact, me on camera, working with the childrenflit was."
Creatives at Jordan McGrath, including art director/creative director Grace McQueen, head of production Peter Cohen, copywriter Jim Aaby and business manager Cindy Pomroy, were so impressed with Gallegos’ ability to direct children that they asked him to helm several test spots. Pleased with the results of the test work as well as his discovery of Welch’s spokeschild Isla Ng, the agency hired Gallegos to direct the subsequent on-air commercials. Gallegos has been freelance helming Welch’s spots ever since, first through Landau Films (now Cognito Films), Santa Monica, and more recently via New York-based Link Entertainment. Eo becomes Gallegos’ first exclusive home for representation as a commercial director. Over the years, he has directed about 35 spots for Welch’s Grape Juice.
Nancy Early, eo’s executive producer, contacted Gallegos this past summer. "She has a relationship with Jordan McGrath; I think people there had mentioned me to her," Gallegos surmised. "And she asked me if I wanted to direct children [for assorted advertisers]." Coincidentally, Gallegos had been considering doing just that. "I’ve been in the business long enough to realize that my best chance, given my background, would be to direct children," he told SHOOT. "Nancy said she liked working with directors who specialized."
Indeed, Gallegos has long specialized in working with children. Through his casting agency, between ’91 and ’93, he had cast kids for the ABC series Baby Talk—the sitcom version of the movie Look Who’s Talking. Gallegos, who eventually became one of the show’s producers, recalled, "Because of the child labor laws [which limit the number of hours that children work] in California, we had to hire twins—we had six sets of twins." On Baby Talk, Gallegos related that he also "had the chance to work with directors like Jim BurrowsflFriends, co-creator of Cheers. I worked with some very well-established sitcom directors, and I really learned a lot from them."
Casting enabled Gallegos to hone his directorial skills: "The executive producer of a show expects a casting director to narrow down a group of actors, then bring in two or three actors for final consideration," he explained. And on a sitcom, "When you’re bringing in an actor for consideration, the director hasn’t even been determined. So you start working with talent on readings, which made me more comfortable with the directing process."
After his stint at Baby Talk ended, Gallegos started getting requests to work with child actors on set: "I helped directors elicit the response or work dialogue with children ranging from infants to about seven years old." This led to the initial call from Flanagan at Jordan McGrath.
Eo also reps director Gillean Proctor, who specializes in tabletop and car footage. Timothy Hayes of New York-based Timothy Hayes & Company reps eo’s directors nationally.
