CFM is an abbreviation that might as well stand for Crossover Film Makers. It actually stands for Creative Film Management International, a New York production house with a roster of feature and episodic directors who also work in the spot world.
Company president/executive producer Lou Addesso, a Brooklyn native, one-time teen rock’n’roll crooner and a former principal in now defunct Editors GAS, created CFM in ’94 upon landing his first prospective Hollywood crossover guy. The artisan was episodic/feature director Gregory Hoblit (NYPD Blue, Hill Street Blues, LA Law and features Primal Fear and Fallen). Addesso says he trusted Hoblit could bring the same dramatic punch that made his episodes so compelling to commercials. " ‘Lou, they can do 30 minutes but they can’t do :30s,’ " Addesso recalls of nay-sayers in the early ’90s, who dismissed his vision to become the principal conduit for turning Hollywood talent loose on Madison Avenue.
"He got hot," Addesso says of Hoblit. "Word got out that I was handling crossover directors. Now, I’m the one who manages the crossover guys’ careers."
Hoblit’s recent commercial credits include the spellbinding spot "911" for MCI Systems, via Messner Vetere Berger McNamee Schmetterer/Euro RSCG, New York. With an out-of-focus woman doubled over in pain in the background, a little Asian girl calls 911, speaking some unidentifiable language. With the click of a mouse, the operator swings MCI’s magic box into action. The voice-recognition technology instantly pegs the language-Mandarin Chinese-and routes the call to a Mandarin-speaking operator. Only then do we find out the girl’s mother is in a state of advanced labor, lost in the wilds of L.A.-someplace like Fullerton or Long Beach. It’s a race against the clock and the ambulance gets there just in time.
Addesso himself acknowledges the demanding and sometimes chaotic schedules of his directors can be problematic. A client who wants to stick with CFM director Ted Demme (episodes of Homicide: Life on the Street, and features such as Beautiful Girls, Monument Ave., and Life), for example, might be frustrated to find that he’s booked for three or six months at a stretch.
Addesso says he’s had to turn down business, but at the same time has succeeded in keeping accounts active by persuading agencies to go with one of his other directors. And when any of his 11 directors are home, Addesso gets them short-term crossover gigs to pick up the slack.
"There might be an interim of a year, year-and-a-half from the time they shoot a [feature] script and finish postproduction," Addesso says. "I get the project that lasts three weeks. Meanwhile, they’re honing their craft. It’s really working."
Agencies are beginning to see the potential rewards in Addesso’s formula. He says it’s not just the keen eye that his directors and their DPs bring to the set; it’s also the celebrity talent they feel comfortable directing. For example, DMB&B, Troy, Mich., decided to pit client GM and its product, the Cadillac Seville, against Mercedes-Benz by using an integrated campaign that included a series of :30s directed by CFM’s Matthew Penn (NYPD Blue, Law & Order). Performances in the humorous ads by stars such as Gregory Hines and Seinfeld’s Patrick Warburton (Puddy) helped the Seville’s sales figures jump 24% in a mere four weeks, according to Addesso.
New Faces
"It’s like doing 30-second movies," says Addesso’s latest recruit, actor/director/writer Nick Cassavetes-the son of legendary feature director John Cassavetes and actress Gena Rowlands-who just wrapped his first commercial directing gig, a seven-spot campaign for ESPN’s Classic Sports Network, via Wieden & Kennedy, New York. Cassavetes describes the spots-which break later this month-as a "betcha didn’t know that" series of stories related by celebrities that recount behind-the-scenes anecdotes from the lives of some of the century’s biggest sports heroes. While he had to adjust to the obvious differences between shooting a feature and a spot, Cassavetes says he found himself "obsessed to do something great," to create something interesting and "not perfunctory."
Cassavetes says long-time friend Demme introduced him to the idea of commercial directing. It happened one evening when Addesso walked into the lobby of the Peninsula in Beverly Hills where they were having drinks.
"Hey, you should do some work for Lou," Cassavetes recalls Demme saying to him. Cassavetes-who starred in Demme’s recently released feature, Life, opposite Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence-at first brushed off his director’s suggestion. "It had never occurred to me before," says Cassavetes. "I didn’t have any idea how to do it. It’s like: ‘Would you like to be a classical pianist?’ "
The next thing Cassavetes knew, Addesso got him hooked up for the ESPN campaign. A perfect match, Addesso says, because the director is totally comfortable with the celebrities who play themselves in the spots.
"It was terrific," Cassavetes enthuses. "The spots are great, the actors are great. Once again, the weak link is me." The DP on the shoot was his cousin Phedon Papamichael, whom Cassavetes credits with showing him the ropes in ’95, when he was shooting his directorial debut, Unhook the Stars.
"I didn’t know what I was doing," Cassavetes says of the feature, which stars Marisa Tomei, Rowlands and Jake Lloyd.
Cassavetes-who joined CFM this spring-says the group is very tight. Most have acted alongside each other or under each other’s direction, creating a powerful synergy that Addesso has harnessed for the commercial business. Take CFM friend and colleague Lesli Linka Glatter (episodes ER, Twin Peaks, and the features The Proposition and Now and Then), who directed Cassavetes in a TV pilot a few years back, and recently completed her commercial debut.
Her first effort as a spot director is the "Tampax Was There" branding campaign for Leo Burnett Co., Chicago. The ads, "Woodstock" and "Spring Break," peg the product to the notion of female empowerment, youth and freedom-not to mention the fact that the product has been around a very long time. In "Spring Break," we cut from a group of clean-cut college kids doing the limbo at a beach blanket bingo party circa ’63 to sexy Cancun in ’99. The music’s different, the mores have changed, but fun and sun endure, and women can enjoy the surf no matter what time of the month. Even more stirring is Glatter’s recreation of Woodstock, complete with naked couples wading in muddy waters, and set to the original ’68 recording of the Zombies’ "Time of the Season."
While Addesso is "holding off" opening an office in Los Angeles, the talent guru says the pressure is building to do it. But he feels a special attachment to his native city. Addesso says he pays no mind to the other crossover operations like Propaganda Independent, a division of bicoastal/international Propaganda Films, and bicoastal and Minneapolis-based A Band Apart 35mm, which have begun recruiting talented feature and episodic directors to the spot trade.
"They’re as good as their directors," Addesso says. "It makes it very competitive. I like the competition."
Cassavetes says Addesso’s casual remark that he might be moving toward opening a shop on the West Coast means there’s probably something in the cards.
"He don’t think small," Cassavettes says. "You can always be sure Lou’s got something big up his sleeve."u
