Duncan Wolfe, who spent the past year-plus as a behind-the-scenes filmmaker and digital strategist for President Obama, has returned to the directorial roster of ONE, the production arm of Optimus.
Wolfe’s work in the White House’s Office of Digital Strategy had him devising, nurturing and realizing varied ways to connect President Obama with the public at large, particularly the youth/young adult demographic. Wolfe helped to launch Snapchat accounts with the First Lady and for the White House, collaborated on a first-of-its-kind virtual reality experience with the President in Yosemite, and deployed Facebook, Twitter and the like to create an engaging dialogue between new media constituents/consumers and the Obama family and administration.
Wolfe had a prominent hand in chronicling the 44th Presidency, traveling across five continents and 19 countries, including Iraq and the history-making trip to Cuba. Wolfe documented President Obama, the First Lady and Vice President Biden everywhere from the Oval Office to aboard Air Force One. Wolfe also captured the most viewed piece of content ever emanating from the White House–showing the President and First Lady dancing with Virginia McLaurin, a nearly 107-year-old woman who was visiting to commemorate Black History Month. Spry with a big smile, McLaurin never thought she’d live to see an African-American President. The joyful dance was posted online and natively garnered 60 million views, not counting those who re-shared it.
Wolfe said his experience at the White House now enables him to bring a new dimension along with different dynamics and sensibilities back to the commercialmaking and branded content arena via ONE at Optimus. For one, he has a new found empathy for ad agency creatives and clients, having been part of a team of 25 people who served as a hybrid in-house creative and production shop, grappling and coming up with ideas to make an impact within a fragmented media and rapid-response marketplace. Wolfe developed a nimble, at times having to run-by-the-seat of your pants working discipline to help bring various pieces of communication to fruition within the confines of President Obama’s demanding schedule. At the White House, Wolfe additionally had the opportunity to interact with, film, and do his job around the world’s most famous artists, actors, musicians, athletes, world leaders and dignitaries.
While joining the White House team was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, Wolfe still had reservations about ending his first tour of Duty at ONE some 14 months ago. At the time, momentum was building for his commercialmaking and branded content career. He had earned inclusion in SHOOT’s 2015 New Directors Showcase for The Art of Listening, a piece of branded content for the Lincoln Motor Company. And Wolfe was drawing work that he found most gratifying, a prime example being a project he shot in Kenya for Amazon Kindle, underscoring the power of that device in a place where books are scarce. The Kindle project introduced viewers to World Reader, a nonprofit with an initiative to eradicate illiteracy by distributing Kindles to schools and communities in need.
Knowing all along that he wanted to return to ONE once his White House tour of duty was wrapped, Wolfe now looks to continue his directorial career pursuit, which he describes as “making content for brands wanting to tell their story, and when possible, to show that they are doing good in the world. I want to be able to convey their messages through varied forms of filmmaking and a variety of mediums.”
Lisa Masseur, executive producer/managing director of ONE, said, “We’ve always been impressed by Duncan’s sweeping, documentary-style storytelling. He is able to connect with subject matter on an emotional level. And his background in film, photography and political media gives him a unique and authentic approach. Now, we add his expertise in bringing the most visible brand on the planet to audiences across the globe. His fluency in the fragmented and increasingly youth-driven media landscape will be so beneficial to our clients.”
Wolfe, who studied political science and then shifted to art history in college, has a history with Obama that goes back to volunteering in the early stages of his presidential run, at the Iowa caucus. Wolfe then worked at then Senator Obama’s presidential campaign headquarters for the 2008 campaign. Wolfe later went on to develop his filmmaking career, helming assorted projects before a stint as a deputy digital director on the Obama 2012 campaign.
Wolfe then joined ONE at Optimus in 2015, directing for such clients as Invesco out of Leo Burnett, and Humana via agency Edelman. He developed a trust and working rapport with Masseur, which factored heavily into his decision to now return to ONE. At press time, Wolfe–who’s relocating from Washington, D.C. to Los Angeles–had wrapped a ONE-produced pro bono piece for an undisclosed client via Leo Burnett.
The director noted that his experience at the White House will always stay with him. “My work at the White House has been the honor of a lifetime,” he affirmed. “I feel so grateful to have been able to leverage my filmmaking knowledge to connect President Obama to people all over the country and all over the world. I came out of this experience with an incredible appreciation for public service, as well as an even deeper understanding of the importance of storytelling.”
