SHOOT talks with Austin, Texas-based GSD&M’s Jan Wieringa, who five months ago made the leap from the production arena to the agency side of the business. However, her new turf is not so unfamiliar as one might think. As VP/head of broadcast production and head of Idea Studios, GSD&M’s new movie division, Wieringa shuttles between Austin and Los Angeles, and has a hand in both spot production and feature development, a balancing act she’s practiced for most of her career.
Wieringa moved to Los Angeles in ’78 and began her career in typical Hollywood fashion: logging hours as a production assistant and assistant director on B movies. But after a few years, and on the advice of a friend, Wieringa began to explore the commercial arena.
Between films, Wieringa began freelance line producing commercials such as some Adrian Lyne-directed ads for Calvin Klein via the former Jennie & Co.; a John Hancock campaign directed by Joe Pytka of PYTKA, Venice, and spots for Nissan directed by Ridley Scott of bicoastal RSA USA. Returning to longform in ’85, Wieringa line produced HBO’s Finnegan Begin Again, starring Mary Tyler Moore, and directed by Joan Micklin Silver. The assignment led to a production executive position at the cable network.
"It was the beginning of what we now cherish about HBO," Wieringa recalls. "For me as a struggling indie filmmaker, it was wonderful because in one year we made five films [including The Man Who Broke 1,000 Chains]. You can’t find a way to make five movies in a year in Hollywood today."
After a year with HBO, Wieringa spent two years producing Powwow Highway, an ’89 film helmed by Jonathan Wacks, which told the story of several Native Americans and won the coveted Filmmakers Award at the Sundance Film Festival, Park City, Utah.
She then joined the ranks of RSA USA, where she spent two years as a producer before moving over to bicoastal/international Propaganda to produce for director David Fincher (now of bicoastal Anonymous). In ’93, Wieringa took the executive producer reins at Propaganda, and during her three-and-a-half-year tenure there, she executive produced the original Michael Bay-directed "Got Milk?" ads out of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco.
Upon exiting Propaganda in ’96, Wieringa spent two years freelance producing for several shops, most often bicoastal Atherton (now bicoastal/international Cylo). In June ’98, she was named president of now defunct Harmony Pictures, the longstanding production house. By October, Wieringa had instituted numerous changes, including changing the shop’s name to Chemistry. "I was on a roll, man," Wieringa says. "I was having a good time, bringing in some new directors, and I was just beginning to make it happen." But in December of ’98, Chemistry was closed by Harmony Holdings Inc., its publicly-traded parent firm.
Wieringa says she remained long enough to "do all the horrible things you have to do when you close a company," and also to complete Chemistry’s first feature film, True Rights, which was already in production when the shop folded. Prior to joining GSD&M, she launched a Los Angeles-based indie production house under the Chemistry banner, where she has three films in development, including Mean, to be directed by Neil Pollock of bicoastal The End.
SHOOT: What did you take away from the experience at Harmony and Chemistry?
Wieringa: The biggest lesson I learned is to never plan anything more than a week ahead of time. And in retrospect, it may have been better to shut down Harmony before I came aboard, and then start a new company with me as president. But [HAHO] wanted me to continue to bring in revenue at the same time that I switched everything around. In my extreme optimism, I thought that could be done.
SHOOT: How has the advertising business changed over the years?
Wieringa: In the old days, you could name the two hundred directors out there, now there’s three thousand. There is so much competition on the production side that you’ve put the agencies in total control. One of the reasons I came to GSD&M is that I wanted to see what it would be like to be a buyer instead of a seller.
SHOOT: What were the other reasons?
Wieringa: Roy Spence [co-founder/ president of GSD&M] told me he wanted to hire someone who would be involved in both spots and features because they were getting into entertainment. I was intrigued, because that’s always been my moniker—doing both features and commercials. Their vision for the company is very big—about five or ten years down the road their business will include an ad agency, a movie division, marketing, strategic planning, TV production, and book and music publishing.
I also thought this opportunity would give me the change of pace I needed. I was intrigued by Austin as a city. I have a love-hate relationship with Los Angeles.
SHOOT: What surprised you most about the agency side of the business?
Wieringa: How complicated the creative process is and how much it takes to get good creative through the system and actually to a director. Really good creative is usually risky, so for us to sell it through all the different places it needs to go takes a lot.
SHOOT: What’s going on with GSD&M’s Idea Studios?
Wieringa: We have our first film project in the works. The screenplay was just finished. It’s a fantastic project called Castro’s Curve Ball, about [Fidel] Castro and the long-held belief that he signed a pitching contract with the Washington Senators when he was nineteen.
SHOOT: What commercials and accounts have you been involved with since joining GSD&M?
Wieringa: We just did two Land Rover spots directed by Leslie Dektor [of Hollywood-based Dektor Film]. Those are my favorite so far. We also did some funny stuff for Pennzoil, three spots directed by Mike Bigelow [of Space Program, Hollywood]. They’re fantastic, too.
SHOOT: What do you think will affect your business most in the next decade?
Wieringa: For GSD&M, we’re at a very important point. The company started thirty years ago, and the people who began the company still run it. But now it’s publicly owned by Omnicom and it’s growing exponentially. The key will be when we need to move beyond this location [Austin]. We’ve traditionally done a lot of regional work. Now we’re getting more national accounts.
In general terms, the ad business is just going to get bigger and bigger, with the proliferation of TV and interactive TV, and the Internet. Everything that keeps throwing information in our face will be supported by advertising, so the possibility for growth is limitless. It’s not going away. v
