Director/cinematographer Bob Mowen has joined Zero 2 Sixty Productions, New York, for exclusive spot representation. Mowen has been repped since ’93 by New York-based Lee Hunt Associates for promotional work and said he will remain informally affiliated with that company for those types of assignments.
Mowen just wrapped directing and shooting his first commercial work for Zero 2 Sixty-an ad for Autobytel, a company that sells cars via the Internet, out of Grey Advertising, New York. He will be handling compositing and layering for the spot during a month of postproduction.
Mowen has an affinity for elaborately-rendered visual constructions that border on surrealism. Mowen does the compositing, layering and special effects work on pieces himself, using a souped-up Macintosh. In a spec spot for Norwegian Cruise Lines which Mowen conceived, directed, shot, designed, composited and edited in ’98, the director created a stream of consciousness affair that conjures the heady quality of a dream. The spot bends time as it shifts through scenes linked by abstract associations. "One of the reasons I did that spot was an attempt to create a vision of the type of work that I’d like to do," he said. "[I enjoy] work that is very much based on a synergy between post and production, that uses clever postproduction techniques to increase production value and help create an aesthetic." Lee Hunt Associates produced the spec piece.
Mowen explained that playing a number of roles on the set and in postproduction is an asset. "I initially thought it would make each job a little bit more complicated because I would be juggling more things, but I’ve actually found the opposite to be true," Mowen observed, noting that he is aware, for instance, of exactly what he needs from a shot in order to composite in post. "Having all of those things in my mind allows me to make quicker decisions."
Doug Robbins, Zero 2 Sixty’s president and executive producer, said that Mowen complemented the roster because of his rigorous aesthetic approach and knowledge of postproduction technologies. "He’s just a wonderful, mild-mannered, truly-talented individual," Robbins said. "He also addresses one of the areas that we seem to be moving more and more in the direction of, and that is compositing, layering, and following through on postproduction." Robbins said that Zero 2 Sixty was currently bidding on four other projects for Mowen.
Mowen said that he signed with Zero 2 Sixty because he enjoyed the environment at the production company. "I liked the fact that they were small, and they seemed genuinely excited about the work I was doing," he explained.
In his ongoing relationship with Lee Hunt, Mowen has directed promotional pieces and image campaigns for clients such as BMG International, the soap program Guiding Light, and Ameritech. Lee Hunt functioned as both agency and production company on those projects, and Mowen additionally served as DP on everything except for the Guiding Light image work.
After graduating in ’89 from New York University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in film and TV production, Mowen moved to the Midwest where he worked as a director/cameraman for Golden Dome Productions, a company owned by the University of Notre Dame that is based in South Bend, Ind. While there, Mowen directed promos, industrials and regional commercials. Mowen initially went to the Midwest to save enough money to finish Nine Feet Tall, a short film he began while a student at NYU. The film is "about a young boy’s loss of innocence, coming to the realization that an older friend isn’t what he portrayed himself to be." In ’95, Mowen was cinematographer for Too Much Sleep, a feature length film directed by David Maquiling and produced by New York-based Open City Films.
